Oral Roberts' Season Ends with Loss to SMU

A bizarre official ruling forced overtime and the Golden Eagles fell 64-57.

Thursday, May 26th 2011, 12:16 pm

By: News On 6

Oral Roberts' Season Ends with Loss to SMU

Originally Published: Mar 16, 2011 11:7 PM CDT

Oklahoma Sports Staff

DALLAS – Oral Roberts’ season is over with a loss to the SMU Mustangs in the first round of the CollegeInsider.com postseason tournament.

Southern Methodist topped ORU 64-57 in overtime thanks to six made free throws by the Mustangs in the final 29 seconds.

Regulation ended in one of the most bizarre officiating decisions of the season.

With the game tied at 52 and both the game and shot clocks winding down, ORU’s Warren Niles missed a jumper that did not catch the rim.

Ken Holdman then missed a put-back attempt as the shot clock expired, but SMU’s Papa Dia grabbed the rebound and heaved the ball the length of the court and straight out of bounds as SMU coach Matt Doherty attempted to call timeout.

With the shot clock expiring, the attempted timeout, and the full-court-length air ball all occurring at the same time, officials huddled for several minutes trying to sort things out.

Eventually, after failing to comprehend the turn of events, the officials declared that the game would simply be moved into overtime.

The Golden Eagles led 57-54 in overtime, but buckets from Papa Dia and Jeremiah Samarrippas gave the Mustangs a 58-57 lead late. SMU hit its free throws down the stretch to close out the Golden Eagles.

Oral Roberts finishes the 2010-11 season with a 19-16 record.