TCU Horned Frogs @ Tulsa Golden Hurricanes Basketball Recap

Tulsa 69, TCU 66

Thursday night, a non-conference tilt unfolded on the South Central Plains. It wasn ’t pretty. It wasn ’t watched by a whole lot of people on a night when bowl games controlled and captured the public ’s imagination.

It won ’t hurt one of the contenders in Conference USA, either... but just barely.

The Tulsa Golden Hurricanes were solid down the stretch and defeated the Jim Christian led TCU Horned Frogs Thursday night at the Reynolds Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The Golden Hurricanes got the defensive stops they needed down the stretch and converted on 10 consecutive free throws in the final minute to seal the victory.  Steven Idlet scored a career high 22 points and pulled down 14 rebounds to pace Tulsa.

The Horned Frogs had their chances in the latter stages of this Red River-flavored tussle between two teams desperately trying to climb up the college basketball ladder. The intrigue built inside the building when TCU ’s J.R. Cadot cut the Tulsa lead to one point on a jumper with 1:22 to play.  However, TCU simply couldn't push through the final 82 seconds. The boys from Fort Worth failed to score on two possessions in the final minute that would have tied the contest.  Ronnie Moss ultimately led TCU with 19 points, but he didn ’t have quite enough ammunition to put his team over the top.

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Nearly 90 percent of Tulsa's offensive output came from three players, a worrisome sign relative to the Golden Hurricane ’s bench. Justin Hurtt, Scottie Haralson, along with Idlet, scored 61 of Tulsa's 69 points on the evening.  Both squads shot 22-of-62 from the field, and nearly all statistical categories were nearly as even.  This clash was simply decided by the ability of Tulsa to make free throws and increase its level of defensive intensity by a small but meaningful margin on the game ’s final – and most important – possessions.

Coach Doug Wojcik's Golden Hurricane might have been thinking about the fact that they begin Conference USA play next week when they travel to El Paso to take on UTEP, but the outfit from Oklahoma needed to take care of business against a downmarket team from a non-BCS conference. By the skin of their teeth, the members of the TU crew squeaked through against TCU. This doesn ’t send a strong message to the rest of the college basketball community on the eve of the Conference USA season, but then again, it ’s not a bad loss, either. This will look like another notch on Tulsa ’s belt, even if the performance of the Golden Hurricane was something less than authoritative. 

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer