Cold-shooting Eagles crunch AggiesLine is overdrawn - TW (11-26-06)

[ORUTerry]

Cold-shooting Eagles crunch AggiesLine is overdrawn

By MIKE BROWN World Sports Writer

11/26/2006

The Oral Roberts basketball team is getting into a bad habit.

For the second straight game, the Golden Eagles shot as if they were blindfolded.

It took almost a half before the Eagles broke away to a 91-41 win over NCAA Division II Panhandle State before 4,571 at the Mabee Center on Saturday night.

Sophomore forward Marchello Vealy scored a game-high 19 points off the bench and senior Caleb Green broke two Mid-Continent Conference records while totaling 17 points to pace five Eagles in double figures.

The margin of victory matched the ninth-most lopsided in ORU history as the Eagles improved to 3-1 and Panhandle fell to 1-3.

ORU missed its first eight shots of the game and didn't score a field goal until 13:27 remained before halftime. The Eagles missed their first 10 shots from 3-point range. That made 26 in a row, after missing the final 16 of Tuesdays win over Louisiana Lafayette.

The Eagles were a combined 6-of-28 from behind the arc, and that was with Vealy hitting 3-of-5. Ken Tutt was 1-of-8 and Moses Ehambe was 1-of-7.

"You sit over there on the bench and shake your head," said ORU coach Scott

Sutton. "It's hard for me to believe that a team with good shooters and what I consider two great shooters in (Tutt and Ehambe) can go through a stretch like that. Were going to see a bunch of zone (defenses) coming up and were going to have to continue to try and get better at attacking the zone and getting the ball inside," Sutton said.

Tutt, who has 242 career 3-pointers, said he tries not to lose confidence.

"You try to shoot the next one like you think it's going to go in. We've been in a little slump as a team, but you know they're going to start falling sooner or later," Tutt said.

The visitors from Goodwell took advantage of ORU's poor shooting and kept the game close until the Golden Eagles started attacking more aggressively on the inside. ORU ran off 11 straight points to build a 32-19 lead with 32-19 lead with 4:01 left in the half.

Kelvin Sango ignited the flurry with a driving basket and foul shot. Green drove the baseline for a reverse layup and Sango drove and dished to Vealy for an easy basket, one of five assists for Sango, who also had 10 points.

"The first 10 or 15 minutes, we probably played about as poorly as we can play, and give (Panhandle) credit. They had more energy and intensity than we did," Sutton said. "The last 25 minutes, I thought we played awfully well."

ORU 91, Panhandle St. 41