Tulsa 90, Texas A&M 56

Saturday, December 15th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

HOUSTON (AP) _ Greg Harrington says spurts like the 19-3 run that Tulsa had against Texas A&M can happen anytime. Friday night, he was a key to the run that gave the Golden Hurricane the lead for good en route to a 90-56 victory.

``Tonight I was fortunate to be in a position to make some plays. It could have been anyone on the team,'' said Harrington, who scored eight of his 10 points during the run.

Tulsa coach John Phillips agreed.

``Anytime you look at the stat sheet and you see 23 assists, you've got a team of unselfish players. That was the difference in the game, our quickness,'' Phillips said. ``We were deep enough to give us the opportunity to wear them down.''

``It all started with our defense. We are smaller and quicker than they are and we were able to get some stops,'' Harrington said.

``We left our minds in College Station,'' Texas A&M coach Melvin Watkins said. ``No effort. I'm not going to make excuses, they beat us to every ball.''

``When we don't want to play we can really stink it up,'' Watkins said. ``When we don't play hard we are one of the worst teams in the country.''

Kevin Johnson led Tulsa (6-1) with 22 points, followed by Dante Swanson and Jason Parker with 11 each.

Texas A&M (5-3) was led by Bernard King with 22 points.

Consecutive baskets by Parker gave Tulsa a 22-16 lead with 10:23 left in the first half. Tulsa led 28-21 before a pair of baskets by Andy Slocum cut the Texas A&M deficit to 28-25 with 6:41 left in the first half.

Tulsa then outscored the Aggies 19-3 in the final 5:17 of the first half to take a 47-28 advantage. The Aggies were never closer than 19 again.

The Golden Hurricane held the Aggies scoreless in the final four minutes of the first half.

Tulsa, 6-1, continued its domination in the second half, taking advantage of 20 turnovers by Texas A&M and out rebounding the Aggies 43-33.