Glover Pours In 25 To Lead Oral Roberts Past Cardinals

The Oral Roberts men's basketball team dug out of an early 12-point hole and downed Lamar 75-67 Thursday night at the Mabee Center. The game was ORU's Turn Tulsa Pink game to support all those affected by cancer and raise money for cancer research.

ORU (15-13, 9-6 SLC) got 25 points from Shawn Glover, 20 points and nine rebounds from Korey Billbury, and 16 points from Brandon Conley, who finished one point off his career high on a 6-7 shooting night.

"Brandon is getting better and playing with more confidence," said Coach Scott Sutton. "When he plays well he makes us a lot better basketball team. When he goes out there with energy it helps us and the guys respond."

As a team, ORU didn't shoot the ball particularly well, dropping in 46 percent (29-63) from the field and hit just one 3-pointer on five attempts, but out-rebounded Lamar (3-24, 2-13 SLC) 37-32. Lamar shot 44 percent (25-56) from the field and hit five of 18 3-point attempts.

Lamar got 18 points from Anthony Holliday and 13 each from Donovan Ross and Nimrod Hilliard, who hit three of Lamar's five 3-pointers on the night. Amos Wilson added 10 points.

ORU did not get the start it wanted at home, falling behind 12-3 just more than three minutes into the game. Down by as many as 12 (18-6) with 15:09 mark, ORU used a 13-4 run to get back into the game, capped by Conley's second 3-point play of the game to make it 22-19.

From there, Jorden Kaufman scored six straight ORU points and gave the Golden Eagles their first lead of the game, 27-26 on a layup with 3:30 to play. It was part of an 8-2 ORU run that gave ORU its first lead since it was 3-2.

Lamar briefly retook the lead before ORU scored seven of the final eight points of the half to take a 34-30 lead into the break.

"The last 13 or 14 minutes of the first half I thought we played really well and I thought we defended well," said Sutton. "We came out strong in the second half and opened up a big lead."

With all 16 points coming from Glover and Billbury, ORU mounted a 16-3 run stretching through halftime to open up a 43-32 lead, causing Lamar to call a timeout with 17:17 to play.

ORU would get it to as much as a 14-point lead, 48-34 but could not close the door as the Cardinals used a 6-0 run to quickly get the gap back to single digits.

Conley and Glover put together an answer for the Golden Eagles, scoring nine straight to push it back to a 15-point game, the largest for either team in the game, taking a 64-49 lead with 7:07 to play.

It wasn't until a long 3-pointer by Hilliard with 1:51 to play that the lead dipped back below 10 as the trey made it a 73-65 ORU lead, but ORU was able to hold off the threat and won its fourth game in the last five.

ORU will honor seniors Shawn Glover and David Mason on Saturday night as the Golden Eagles host Sam Houston State in the final home game of the year at 7:30 p.m. The TTCU Diaper Dash will also be held on Saturday, with the competition taking place at halftime of the game.