Tiger foe just glad to be in it - Memphis Commerical Appeal

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Tiger foe just glad to be in it

A year after at-large snub, Oral Roberts makes it automatically

By Jim Masilak

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March 13, 2006

A year ago, the Oral Roberts men's basketball team gathered for Selection Sunday feeling certain a 25-win season would be good enough to garner an NCAA Tournament at-large berth.

However, when the field of 65 was revealed, the Golden Eagles, who had been upset by Oakland in the Mid-Continent Conference Tournament final, were stunned by their absence.

This year, the Golden Eagles (21-11) earned a share of the MCC regular-season title and then won the conference tournament, thus ensuring there would be no snub from the selection committee.

Having qualified automatically for its first NCAA berth in 22 years, the Golden Eagles were rewarded with a No. 16 seed in the Oakland Regional and a date Friday in Dallas against the top-seeded University of Memphis.

"We thought we deserved to get in last year. We thought we had done enough," ORU coach Scott Sutton said Sunday night. "This is all they've thought about since then, to get to this."

When ORU last appeared in the tournament, in 1984, the Golden Eagles were handed a first-round assignment against none other than the UofM. In a game played at the Mid-South Coliseum, the Tigers won, 92-83, and advanced to the Sweet 16 before losing to Houston.

"This time of year, especially when you haven't been in the tournament in a while, you're excited about getting to play anybody," said Sutton, a son of Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton and a former OSU player. "We knew we were gonna have to play one of the top-10 teams in America. We knew we were gonna have to play somebody awfully good, and Memphis is awfully good.

"I think they're probably the most athletic team in the country."

ORU is led by 6-8, 240-pound junior forward Caleb Green, a two-time MCC Player of the Year and Tulsa native who averages 20.8 points and 8.9 rebounds per game, both conference-bests.

"Caleb's an outstanding player," said Sutton, who is 121-90 in seven seasons at the Tulsa, Okla.-based school. "He can play in any league in America. ... He's seen double- and triple-teams throughout his career and he's gotten a lot better at handling those situations."

ORU is more than a one-man team.

Larry Owens, a 6-7 senior guard/forward, averages 12.5 points and 7.8 rebounds and was the MCC's Defensive Player of the Year.

ORU also has a pair of guards, junior Ken Tutt and Chris Riouse, who shoot better than 40 percent from 3-point range.

Tutt hit 101 3-pointers two years ago as a freshman and is 50-for-119 this season (42 percent). He missed 10 games earlier this season with a broken bone in his foot but came back to win MVP honors in the MCC Tournament.

"We've got good guards. We're pretty balanced and we're pretty deep -- we play up to 11 guys -- and we're experienced," Sutton said.

After going 13-3 in conference play and sharing the league's regular-season title with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), ORU beat Chicago State to capture its first MCC tournament title and set up a meeting with the Tigers (30-3) at the America Airlines Center.

"We're excited about playing in Dallas," Sutton said. "We couldn't ask for a better place to play. We have four kids from Dallas, which is our top recruiting area other than Tulsa."

Memphis is 4-2 all-time against ORU, having won the last four meetings.

The Golden Eagles beat the Tigers during the 1971-72 and '74-75 seasons. Memphis then got a measure of revenge in that 1984 meeting before beating ORU in three successive seasons from 1987-89.

"People who have been around the program a long time talk about Memphis almost like it was a rivalry in the '70s and '80s," Sutton said.

Still, ORU will be a largely unknown quantity to the Tigers.

"I don't know much about them," UofM freshman guard Antonio Anderson said. "But everybody is out there trying to win games, so we've got to be ready to play."

With a CollegeRPI.com rating of 131, Oral Roberts ranks ahead of only Southern (132), Monmouth (144) and Hampton (284) among tournament teams.

ORU played six NCAA-bound teams during the regular season. Its lone win came against Monmouth, which will play Hampton in Tuesday's play-in round.

ORU lost twice to Utah State as well as to Marquette, Montana and Oklahoma.

The Golden Eagles' best win came in their second game of the season, when they routed USC by 20 points at the Great Alaska Shootout before falling to Marquette by just three points in the fifth-place game.

"We've been tested," Sutton said. "But we haven't seen anyone quite like Memphis."

-- Jim Masilak: 529-2311

Tigers' first-round foe: Oral Roberts

Nickname: Golden Eagles

Location: Tulsa, Okla.

Coach: Scott Sutton

Record: 21-11

NCAA record: 2-2

Entry to tournament: Automatic as Mid-Continent Conference Tournament champion

Best regular-season win: 68-48 vs. Southern Cal on Nov. 23.

Worst regular-season loss: 70-65 to Western Illinois on Jan. 24.

Did you know?: Sutton is youngest son of Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton and played for his father there in the early 1990s.

Outlook: Eagles' first NCAA trip since 1984 will be a brief one.