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1) Mackey gave Bruner fits. I was sitting under their basket in first half (our bench end), and McBride’s quick hands frustrated Bruner, knocking the ball off Bruner’s knee and out of bounds, etc. 2) Jalen’s leaping ability reminded me of Lamont Reid’s vertical. 3) Foul call on their 3 before halftime looked sketchy. 4) DJ’s 3 was like the Sweet 16 shot. We never trailed after those. 5) Mackey showed what he could do against a premier player.

THIS ^^^* is EXACTLY what I was trying to articulate @ORUTerry when we spoke Saturday night. THIS is what should be shared with recruits, and their families, and their relatives, and their coaches, before ANY discussion of NIL, or summer jobs, or playing time, or practice facilities, or majors offered, etc. THIS is where ORU has something to offer that VERY FEW schools do: “Young man, are you interested in joining us for the JOURNEY OF YOUR LIFE?” #followme

I was center court and 4 rows away from Springmann when he got the T. I wish I had taken a picture. I love the intensity and passion that Springmann is showing and how many good coaches know when to get a T to motivate their team?! I think the T sent a message to the players to up their game which indeed they did. As the leader goes so goes the team!

Talk about parity! The Jacks (now tied for the lead in the Summit) and the Coyotes (alone in last place in the league) played today on the Jacks’ home court with SDSU as a 15.5 point favorite, and the game came down to the final shot, and nearly went to overtime. I’m now convinced that EVERY game in Sioux Falls will be a toss-up, as ANY team in the conference can beat ANY other team in the conference on ANY given day. Every team has a chance to win the title and the automatic bid this year. If there is ANY year that a large group of rabid fans in Sioux Falls in March could make a big difference for ORU, this is it! The tourney will be WIDE open…

I like Mills to a point but Springman is in a league of his own! Just talk with him for a few minutes and you will see that he exudes sincerity and integrity! He is a rare breed.

It seems like more than “coach-speak” to me. It is better to have a coach who truly believes in the value and vision of ORU because they will be more able to enthusiastically recruit to ORU. For fair balance, I also believe that Paul Mills believed in the value and vision of ORU as well. He just pursued an opportunity that he felt he couldn’t turn down after having 2 recent NCAA tournament appearances.

Been away a few days while celebrating a birthday with my fam. Tickets that are complementary are not subject to sales tax; however, most other tickets will be taxed by the state/local authorities. I agree with OT that there is nothing ethically wrong with the giveaway tickets as they make the environment enticing for future purchasers. Truly, the basketball environment is much better in the past three seasons than I have seen in the past three decades. It certainly doesn't compare to the 70's and early 80's, but for this generation it is great!

More accolades

Well actually Eagleman, Charles Stanley grew up in the pentecostal church. It became an issue for him when he was up for SBC president and some of the hardliners were afraid he'd bring snakes to the next convention lol. I heard the great Charles Stanley preach in person back in the 90s. I was in Atlanta for 3 Grateful Dead shows at the Omni and we headed to FBC Atlanta on Sunday morning. Pretty sure we were the only folks to see Dr. Stanley AND the Dead that day.

Thought this was important enough to earn its own thread. It’s good to see HCRS speak from his heart. He is a first year head coach and has had some missteps, which is to be expected. But this team is mentally tough and hopefully will peak as we get closer to March.

Sorry Jason....Springmann exudes sincerity...Mills exudes BS...and how is that Wichita State thing working out???

You’re right. I was too definitive in my statement. I just think we can use that play a lot more than we do.

General observations from the game against Denver: Nice crowd that was loud at times - especially towards the end of the game when the team needed it. ORU started out strong and built a nice lead (22-6 at the 12:00 minute mark. We then stagnated a bit, committed several turnovers and they hit shots so that at 3:46 the score was 33-30. We then hit several three pointers and other shots to end the half at 44-34. Bruner is a nice player, but he is no Max Abmas. He forced some shots and played a bit chippy. Saw him do a couple of things that were unnecessary (grabbing, bulldozing thru the lane, etc. ) - probably out of frustration. He missed 8 minutes of the game because of his foul position. Scored 22 on 21 shots - versus McBride’s 34 points on 18 shots. Denver took 27 shots in the first half - 23 which were three pointers. That is a pretty crazy stat. They ended the game with 62 shots - with 38 of those three pointers. Denver came out blazing in the 2nd half - scoring 22 points in the 4:19 minutes while we managed to score 4 points. We committed turnovers in bunches and ended up with a total of 17 for the game. That totally out of character for this team. It was our guards: Thompson (4), Bedford (5) and McBride (6). By the 15:30 mark, we were down by 10 points. Denver zoned us for a significant time (off & on) during the game. It was active and we had to work the ball to get open looks. Their length and athleticism caused us problems. At the 12:19 mark, Coach Springman was T’d up for contesting a call; he thought a called block should have been a goal tending. I think he passed the half court line while talking with the ref. It did not seem egregious, but you could argue that it spurred the team on because we slowly clawed our way back into the game. It helped that Denver stopped making shots. Our post players seem to be open on every pick & roll. Most of the time they are wide open. The problem is our guards can’t or won’t make that pass… except for Thompson. Maybe it’s because he is tall enough to see/make the pass. If we ever figure that out, it could be really devastating. Late threes by Weaver and McBride were huge, along with Bedford’s rebounding and Phipps coming off the bench to make 2 very important free throws.

From what I can tell, we only had one technical fouls assessed - which was against Coach Springman. Bedford was assessed a common foul ( his 5th) and consequently fouled out. I guess that precluded him from shooting free throws. That was a new one for me.

I don't know why I waste my time listening to this drivel. The first FORTY MINUTES of this week's one-hour-and-twenty-minute installment focused entirely on two games: SDSU vs. USD, and UND vs. NDSU. Then they hurried through all of TWO MINUTES talking about how formidible Denver looked in losing to....(who was that team again?). Only mentioned tied-for-third ORU in passing during those precious 120 seconds, talking about Issac McBride in comparison to Tommy Bruner of Denver. Literally spent more time earlier in the podcast discussing a goal tending call in the SDSU-USD game, whether Andrew Morgan of NDSU is a true post player or not, and how apparently dangerous NDSU and USD are, despite sitting in 8th and 9th place respectively in conference play. I give up... (Actually, I'm thinking of volunteering to provide these guys a 5-10 minute capsule each week they could simply imbed within their tundra-centric dronings, titled "South of the 40th Parallel" and featuring actual insights re: ORU, UMKC, Denver and Omaha.) At least that way, I wouldn't have to bother sifting through all this reindeer poop every Monday afternoon.

TheEagleman loves this guy!!!

The Denver game was a summary of the season: lots of curves and twists and turns. That is why ORU is 11-11. At times they look good (Tulsa, SDSU, and @Denver) and other times the Eagles have really struggled (KC, St. Thomas, and North Dakota). Not sure this will change: I think we will continue to see a lot of ups and downs the rest of the season but hopefully ORU is on an upward swing by the Summit League Tournament.

I was out of town and not able to watch the game but one observation from the box score: Miller played 18 minutes and was 0-2 on FGs, 0-2 on FTs, 1 rebound, 0 assists, 0 blocks, and 0 steals. I do think Miller brings some defensive intensity off the bench but that isn’t much of a box score. A friend of mine was complaining that Springmann seems to sub-in Miller to replace whatever ORU player has been playing well or shooting well. It is like he subs out the hot-handed player and disrupts the team chemistry and doesn’t leave in the lineups that are playing well together. I haven’t paid much attention to the timing of the player substitutions but will watch it more over the next few games. Basically we have a 7-man rotation at this point. Also, kudos to Herron for going 7 for 7 on FGs and scoring 14 points in 18 minutes. That is an impressive and efficient performance.

Max continues to dazzle. It amazes and amuses me how much the announcers like to talk about him! They constantly sing his praises. My impression is that he's appreciated by the Texas fans almost as much as he was by the ORU fans. A mistake was made by one of the announcers today, though - he said that Texas coach Rodney Terry has developed toughness in Max, leading to his drives to the basket and taking the punishment that comes along with those drives!! Sorry, man! Max was driving to the hoop and dealing with the consequences long before he headed to Texas. That announcer needs to familiarize himself with Max's performance in the Summit before he compares it with his performance in the Big 12.

That was just a weird night all around. Scoreboard problems, game clock issues, extended official time outs… First 5 min of the game were amazing, first five minutes of the 2nd half were disastrous. Denver was very thuggish. I congratulated Coach Springmann walking out and commented on what a strange night it was. He made on comment lamenting the inconsistencies in officiating.

IT'S A JOKE. Oh...nvm.

Where would ORU be without Bedford's rebounding? In big trouble of course. He has led the team in rebounding most of the year, Kareem just last game tied him for the lead. What is most impressive is that JB was an average rebounder in Juco (4 a game) and now he is around 7 per game at the D1 level. He is very aggressive in his approach for a guy that does not have super size or strength. He must have really worked on his game in the summer to make this big of a jump in one year. The first fruits of the new Mike Carter athletic building!