GAME BOOK (PDF) | POSTGAME QUOTES
NEW ORLEANS – The problem with making comebacks is sometimes the clock runs out before the effort can be completed. That was the case for the University of New Orleans men's basketball team on Wednesday night at Tulane as the Privateers rallied from a 13-point deficit before ultimately dropping a 64-62 decision to the homestanding Green Wave inside Avron B. Fogelman Arena in Devlin Fieldhouse.
The Privateers trailed 37-24 with 18:20 to play in the contest and used a 17-3 run over the next 6:39 to take a 41-40 lead. The Green Wave reclaimed the lead on the next time down the court and held a 61-57 advantage with 1:46 to go before. From there, junior guard
Christavious Gill connected on a jumper, stole the ball on the ensuing Tulane possession and buried a 3-pointer at the one-minute mark to give UNO a 62-61 lead.
Tulane responded with a layup by Dylan Osetkowski and a 1-of-2 performance from the free throw line by Jernard Jarreau to account for what proved to be the final score. UNO had a chance to send the game into overtime or take the lead late, but a 3-point attempt at the buzzer was off the mark.
The loss was the second in a row for the Privateers as UNO fell to 2-4 on the young season. Tulane, meanwhile, won its third consecutive contest to improve to 5-3.
"It was disappointing," head coach
Mark Slessinger said. "This is obviously a victory that our 35,000 alumni that live in the metro area deserve. It's one that we worked out tail off for. I think we grew up a lot tonight. We still have a lot of young, inexperienced guys and we grew up a ton. This game is going to help us in the league and help us win the Southland Conference Tournament.
"For us, this was a championship environment, we made it that way and it's going to help us. I'm proud of our effort. I'm disappointed in some of our execution and our actions. I made some mistakes. We did some stuff that we'll go back and fix. We're going to get better."
Gill led three Privateers in double figures offensively with a game-high 15 points – 13 of which came in the second half – while junior guard
Nate Frye and senior forward
Kevin Hill added 11 and 10, respectively. Junior forward
Erik Thomas came off the bench to pull down a team-best 11 rebounds, Frye shared game-high assist honors with four and Gill followed suit in steals with four. Sophomore wing
Michael Zeno and sophomore forward
Travin Thibodeaux each had a block for the UNO defense.
As a team, the New Orleans shot 32.8 percent from the field (21-of-64), but bounced back from a .235 performance over the first 20 minutes of the game (8-of-34) to hit 43.3 percent of its shots in the second half (13-of-30). The Privateers forced 16 turnovers, including nine via steal, and scored 22 points off the Green Wave miscues. Tulane connected at a .367 clip for the game with 22 buckets on 60 shots and was able to convert 18 free throws in 29 trips to the line.
The Privateers got off to a good start as UNO scored the first five points of the game only to see Tulane respond with a 10-0 run to go up by five with 12:53 to play in the opening stanza. The Green Wave stretched their first-half lead to double figures at 23-13 with 5:03 on the clock before the Privateers used a 6-1 run over the next 1:36 to cut the deficit in half. Tulane scored six points to stretch its lead to 11 and went on to take a 33-24 lead into the locker room at the break.
It appeared as if the Wave were going to run away with the contest early in the second half as Tulane went up by a baker's dozen before UNO mounted its comeback. Along the way to taking their first lead since the opening moments of the game, the Privateers hit seven of its 12 field goals, including a pair of 3-pointers, and held Tulane to a 1-of-6 performance from the field while the Green Wave were 1-of-4 from the charity stripe to set up the wild finish.
"To see them be tough and to see them have resolve to get execution and not get flustered was really, really important," Slessinger said of his team's comeback effort. "It was big for us confidence wise. When we go back and talk about this game tomorrow morning, we'll talk about what was good and what was bad. We'll cover that and it'll be a big positive for us."
Malik Morgan paced the Green Wave with 12 points, followed by Osetkowski with 11 while Jarreau and Louis Dabney had 10 apiece. Jarreau completed a double-double with a game-high 13 rebounds as did Osetkowski with 11 boards. Von Julien led Tulane with four assists, Osetkowski headlined the defense with four steals and Blake Paul had three of the Wave's six blocked shots.
UNO returns to action on Saturday, Dec. 5, when the Privateers close out its four-game road swing at Ball State. Tipoff for that game is schedule for 2 p.m. The New Orleans squad's next home game is slated for Saturday, Dec. 12, when they return to Lakefront Arena to take on Williams Baptist at 6:15 p.m.
Tickets to that game and future Privateer sporting events can be purchased by clicking
HERE or by calling the UNO Athletics Ticket Office at (504) 280-GAME (4263).
