ORU Notebook - Tulsa World (3-7-2007)

[ORUTerry]

ORU Notebook

By MIKE BROWN World Sports Writer

3/7/2007

Fan from afar: Larry Owens was one of the first to congratulate his former teammates on an earning a return trip to the NCAA Tournament

The 6-foot-7 forward, who starred on last year's Mid-Con championship team, called via cell phone from France, where he is playing pro basketball. He watched the game on the Internet.

"(Owens) just said good job and way to come back (from an 11-point deficit)," ORU senior guard Ken Tutt said. "He said he wished he could have been here to celebrate with us."  ( Me too. I saw Luke Spencer-Gardner, Matt Gastel and Mickey Michalec at the game.)

Good show: Oakland coach Greg Kampe called the game against ORU in Michigan 10 days ago, an 85-84 overtime win by the Grizzlies was, "One of the best college basketball games I've ever seen."

On Tuesday night, both coaches agreed the championship game was a good advertisement for Mid-Con basketball. It was televised nationally by ESPN.

"It showed the nation that there's really good basketball here," ORU coach Scott Sutton said.

Said Kampe, "It was one heckuva basketball game. It was just like the one we played two weeks ago -- back and forth, with runs by both teams, big-time plays and people making great shots."

Twice is better: The ORU men will make their first back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament in school history.

Kudos for King: ORU forward Caleb Green said junior center Shawn King's defense was critical after Green picked up his second foul in the first half and third with 14:44 left. King scored only two points but blocked five shots and snagged seven rebounds.

Team goals first: Green said he hadn't paid much attention to the milestones he and teammate Ken Tutt reached. Green set the Mid-Con career-scoring record with 2,490 points and Tutt reached the 2,000 plateau. He and Green are only the seventh Division I teammates to reach that milestone in the same year.

"Those records are hard to keep up with and hard to think about when you're with a bunch of teammates who are going for a team goal," Green said. "I don't think Ken's goal was to score 2,000 points. Obviously, our biggest goal was winning this game and getting back to the NCAA Tournament."