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very good read... First TU-ORU basketball game was a win for the city By JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer (excerpt) Never say never Hayes once received a letter from TU's president which unequivocally stated TU will never play ORU. "Then, about three years later, Oral Roberts came to my house in his black fedora and overcoat," said Hayes, who coached the Golden Hurricane from 1968-75. Over cocoa and cookies, Roberts expressed a desire for ORU to play TU. Hayes said he was willing to play tomorrow. But the coach also said the decision was out of his control and the evangelist said he understood. "Two days later, I get a letter from my president saying we will schedule ORU and we will be the aggressor," Hayes said. What changed president Paschal Twyman's mind? Hayes still doesn't know. Hayes wanted to schedule ORU because he grew tired of playing second fiddle to the "new girl" in town. "They were getting all the press and rightly so and winning (a bunch of) games and (Ken) Trickey had them running up and down the court and shooting from midcourt," Hayes said. FULL ARTICLE

ESPN's Jay Bilas could have played ball at 81st and Lewis (excerpt) In the fall of 1981, when Bilas was a senior at Rolling Hills High School in California, he visited the city because he was an Oral Roberts University basketball recruit. Details? “Mark Acres went to Oral Roberts,” Bilas said. “His mother was a very faith-based person, a religious person, and she really hammered my mom that I should go, that God wanted me to go to Oral Roberts to play with Mark and Jeff (Acres).” Bilas’ parents were swayed. They told him he needed to visit ORU, so he did. “Ken Hayes recruited me,” Bilas said. “I loved him. Great guy. His plan was -- and he told me this -- he was going to get me, Wayman Tisdale, Mark Price and Steve Hale and we were going to win the national championship. So when I landed at Tulsa, he picked me up at the airport and he drove me to Jenks High School to meet Steve Hale. Joe Holladay (now a North Carolina assistant) was the coach there.” FULL ARTICLE