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"Praise The Lord & Pass The Ball" ORU Basketball Documentary


Old Titan

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Happy now to share details on the upcoming documentary "Praise The Lord & Pass The Ball", focusing on the meteoric rise of ORU basketball in the early 70's.

Following several months of planning and several days of shooting interviews in Tulsa and Nashville, the project has now reached the editing and post-production stage, and a Kickstarter.com site has been established to complete the financing, which to this point has been footed by former ORU coach Ken Trickey's daughter and son:

Praise The Lord & Pass The Ball (Kickstarter.com)

This is a fantastic project that will provide a legacy of the glory years of "ORU Titan" basketball for generations to come.  Here's hoping that ORU basketball fans young and old will contribute to this endeavor, so a finished product can be realized as soon as possible!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's a link to the Facebook page for the "Praise The Lord & Pass The Ball" documentary project - some great old photos on here of the glory days; feel free to post your own recollections of ORU Basketball from that time, if you have them!

https://www.facebook.com/Praise-the-Lord-and-Pass-the-Ball-556082041568485/

 

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If you haven't seen the Kickstarter.com page for the "Praise The Lord & Pass The Ball" documentary on the early days of ORU Basketball, you should REALLY check it out.  It's full of LOTS of classic photos and details of ORU's rise from a start-up college basketball program to an overtime loss with Kansas in the Elite Eight.  GREAT STUFF!

Here's where you can help the Trickey family realize their dream of creating a permanent record of the glory years of "ORU Titan" basketball:

Praise The Lord & Pass The Ball (Kickstarter.com)

 

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Great stuff...brings back so many great college memories for TheEagleman.....cant wait to see it!...😀

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Mabee Center 1972-76 has some great basketball and special event memories for TheEagleman....i was at many concerts because i worked on the clean up crew for a couple years to make extra money....i was there for Elvis....and John Denver as I recall....was at just about every basketball game including the opener vs. Wisconsin....NCAA games vs. Louisville and Kansas...the KU loss still stings 45 years later....ouch!..😪

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  • 7 months later...
5 hours ago, Old Titan said:

👀

What 4 or 5 star commit did Lincoln Riley get today?

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Great trailer!  Once the documentary is out, they should show it in chapel to let the students gain a greater appreciation for the history of ORU.

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Can't wait to see the documentary in March. Where will it be found? On television, internet? So I don't miss it.

 

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There will be a premier that’s open to the public at the Circle Theater in Tulsa in late March; after that it will be available for online streaming. 

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Looks like great stuff....TheEagleman can't wait to see this....where the heck did you find Larry Baker, Greg Davis and Haywood Hill?....those were some really good guys back in the day....ORU legends....makes me want to do a Titan Train...🤩..:circle-logoi:

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  • 1 year later...

If anyone in the area would like to attend the public premiere at 4:00 pm this Saturday in Tulsa, just e-mail Kay Trickey Herring at ktherring3@gmail.com to be added to the invite list.

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  • 2 weeks later...

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE:  here it is, the complete documentary of the meteoric rise of ORU basketball in the late 60's and early 70's - enjoy!!

 

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Great video OT!  Thanks for posting.  It really explains to us newer guys about how ORU basketball began and how they made the Elite Eight.  Reminds me of that movie Glory Road that came out about 10-15 years ago and showed how a small school, UTEP, became a national championship team with all black players.  ORU was still good up until the 80s with the Acres brothers but then the team really seemed to fall apart and ended up being an NAIA team.  What happened between say around 85 and 95 when ORU basketball hit rock bottom?  It was also nice to see Scott Sutton open the video because in the mid 2000s he helped to restore the program with three straight NCAA tournament appearances.

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42 minutes ago, Keenan Henderson said:

Great video OT!  Thanks for posting.  It really explains to us newer guys about how ORU basketball began and how they made the Elite Eight.  Reminds me of that movie Glory Road that came out about 10-15 years ago and showed how a small school, UTEP, became a national championship team with all black players.  ORU was still good up until the 80s with the Acres brothers but then the team really seemed to fall apart and ended up being an NAIA team.  What happened between say around 85 and 95 when ORU basketball hit rock bottom?  It was also nice to see Scott Sutton open the video because in the mid 2000s he helped to restore the program with three straight NCAA tournament appearances.

In 1982, ORU fired head coach Ken Hayes a week before Christmas in a bone-headed move that was eerily similar in terms of a PR disaster as the Scott Sutton fiasco.

As a native Oklahoman and former head coach at TU, Ken Hayes was universally viewed as a "good guy" by the local media and area basketball fans, undeserving of ORU's shabby treatment.  Season ticket sales plummeted in the subsequent years, despite ORU's success with the Acres brothers. By 1989, ORU was on their SEVENTH head coach in 16 seasons, struggling to draw fans, and facing a possible death penalty from the NCAA over rules violations by an unscrupulous assistant coach on a previous staff.  That's when they retreated to the safety of the NAIA for the next two years, before returning to D1 play in 1991.

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