Tulsa

[Queens_NYC]

Wednesday, February 1st, 2023
7:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN+

The Bearcats (13-8 [5-4 AAC], NET #78, KenPom #63) take on Tulsa (5-15 [1-8 AAC], NET #284, KenPom #249) for their final regular season match-up as conference foes. While both teams are looking to snap two-game losing streaks, the Bearcats are aiming to win their 12th game (of 15) over Tulsa since joining the AAC.

The Golden Hurricanes are led by first-year head coach Eric Konkol who was hired away from Louisiana Tech after compiling a 153-75 record over 7 seasons in CUSA.

Tulsa only returns 3 of their top 8 scorers from last season's 11-20 squad that split two games with the Bearcats. They are led by 4th-year 6'3 guard Sam Griffin (15.8 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 2.3) apg) and 3rd-year JUCO transfer 6'9 forward Bryant Selebangue (13.0 ppg, 9.3 rpg).

Tulsa does poorly across many metrics, but the best thing they do well is defend the 3-point line (opponents shoot 29.9%).

The Bearcats are 15-point favorites at home.

 

[sedziobs]

Tulsa is really bad. Of the "four factors", the only area they are above average is keeping opponents off the free throw line. We don't get to the line anyway (Tulsa gets to the line even less). They are a horrible rebounding team, especially on the defensive glass. As Queens noted, they allow less than 30% from three which is top 25 in the country. But they allow opponents to convert 64% at the rim, and almost 40% of looks come from there. They don't force opponents into many midrange looks (only 23% of shots). The stats paint a picture of a porous defense that allows a lot of layups and putbacks.

On offense, they rely heavily on threes, but they only convert 32% from beyond the arc. The only real concern is if Tulsa hitting from three, like when they made 12 threes in their only conference win against Tulane. But even in that game they only put up 1.01 points per possession, and it was their only conference game they gave up less than 1 point per possession. We should be able to outscore them.

 

[waterhead]

Sounds like a good game for Vik and maybe a guy like Skillings.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Sounds like a good game for Vik and maybe a guy like Skillings.

Getting some good minutes from Skillings so far. He needed a game like this to get his groove back.

 

[TheLongHaul]

Getting some good minutes from Skillings so far. He needed a game like this to get his groove back.

Man that play by Davenport was really piss poor. Amazing he still lacks the fundamentals to simply box out. If you don't know what I'm talking about find a reply with 59 seconds left in first half.

 

[waterhead]

Getting some good minutes from Skillings so far. He needed a game like this to get his groove back.

Would love to a set play backdoor dunk from him. We tried one with Davenport but Skillings would be the guy.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Man that play by Davenport was really piss poor. Amazing he still lacks the fundamentals to simply box out. If you don't know what I'm talking about find a reply with 59 seconds left in first half.

Yeah. I wasn't surprised Davenport was the one who allowed Tulsa to break their FG drought. With him being our high scorer so far something had to give.

 

[sedziobs]

Ezikpe getting some time at the 4 here.

 

[TheLongHaul]

Ezikpe getting some time at the 4 here.

He's better than Oguama. This team isn't good enough to play 4 on 5, and Oguama give them zero on offense and frankly isn't very good at defense either. He hustles, I'll give him that. Ezikpe at least has some offensive skills.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Great final result despite there being some extended lulls where the execution wasn't up to par.

Other than Phinisee (on offense) and Ody (on both ends of the court), everyone else who stepped on the court last night had a pretty strong showing.

 

[sedziobs]

Ody has had a weird season. He didn't play a whole lot in the first 5 games, but then was good enough to put himself in the starting lineup through the middle of the season. Recently he has been struggling on both ends. His offense has been horrible in conference play and his rebounding and fouling have been bad in the past few games.

We went on a 16-0 run late in the first half to put this game away. We outrebounded them by 12 and went 14-21 at the rim with 22 assists. Our defense was really good too. Tulsa had 12 turnovers and only 18 made shots.