Big Days By Gill, Thomas Not Enough As Men's Basketball Falls At Tulsa, 77-68

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TULSA, Okla. – The senior tandem of guard Christavious Gill (IDS/Behavioral Studies) and forward Erik Thomas (IDS/Business) combined for 43 points and the Privateers scored 21 points off 18 Golden Hurricane turnovers, but it was not enough as the University of New Orleans men's basketball team dropped a 77-68 decision at Tulsa on Saturday afternoon in the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
 
With the score knotted at 34-all at the end of the first half, UNO (1-2) scored the first points of the final stanza on a bucket by junior forward Travin Thibodeaux (IDS/Pre-Dental) only to see Tulsa (1-2) go on an 8-2 run to take a 42-36 lead it would not relinquish. The Golden Hurricane advantage swelled to as many as 15 at 59-44 with 8:39 left to play and the Privateers were able to whittle the deficit down to five twice down the stretch. Tulsa guard Sterling Taplin, however, buried a 3-pointer each time to keep New Orleans at arms' reach the rest of the way.
 
"They had two good runs," head coach Mark Slessinger said. "On the back end of the first half, the last 10 they got on a good run when we went dry offensively, couldn't get to the free throw line and didn't get the stops we needed. In the second half, second-chance points killed us. They had 11 second-chance points where we forced misses and didn't get the rebound. That was really the game.
 
"We did a lot of things better offensively. We moved the ball a good bit better. We cut our turnovers down dramatically. We executed at a much better rate. We had some foul trouble which caused some weird lineups and here was an injury to Cameron [Reed], which changed our rotations, but they kept finding ways to make it work."
 
As a team, New Orleans hit 41.0 percent of its field goals (25-of-61) – including a .368 clip from beyond the 3-point arc (7-of-19) – and a respectable 78.6 percent from the free throw line (11-of-14). Tulsa, however, connected on 54.4 percent of its shots from the floor – including a 17-of-28 effort in the second half (.607) – and held a sizable 40-29 advantage off the glass.
 
The Golden Hurricane turned 16 offensive rebounds into 17 second-chance points with 11 boards and 11 points coming in the game-deciding second half. Tulsa also outscored UNO in the paint, 46-34.
 
Gill led the Privateers with 23 points after going 8-of-16 from the field, 5-of-11 from downtown and 2-of-2 from the free throw line, and Thomas added 20. The duo was the only two UNO student-athletes to finish in double figures offensively as Thibodeaux added nine points and senior guard Tevin Broyles (IDS/Health Studies) chipped in with seven. Broyles and Thomas shared team-high assist honors with five each, Thomas paced the Privateers with seven rebounds while Broyles and junior guard Jorge Rosa (IDS/Behavioral Studies) both tallied three steals.
 
"They were both really solid," Slessinger said of his team's two 20-point scorers. "We're pleased with where they both were. Christavious had been in a funk in those first two games but he was the least of my worries. He was going to come back. He's a fighter. He's got ultimate confidence. He's not a guy who will have multiple bad games in a row.
 
"Erik has been good for us all year. We got good minutes from Thibodeaux. Offensively, he did some really good things. We also had a good floor game from Broyles again with him being able to run the team against changing defenses. We did some good stuff there."
 
The Privateers got off to a good start as Broyles and Gill sandwiched 3-pointers around a Thomas layup to stake UNO to an 8-0 lead. New Orleans led by as many as 12 following a Gill trey to make it 23-11 with 11:15 to play before the break. From there, Tulsa went on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to five and got it down to one at 27-26 on a Pat Birt bucket with 3:57 on the clock. New Orleans answered with a 7-4 run over the next 2:43, but the Golden Hurricane got a jumper by Martins Igbanu with 33 seconds remaining and a layup by Taplin as the horn sounded to tie the ballgame.
 
After Thibodeaux's jumper to open the second half, the Privateers missed 12 of their next 14 shots and committed seven turnovers over the next 10-plus minutes to aid in Tulsa's game-deciding run. Down by 15, UNO got four consecutive points by Thomas and a layup from Gill to get it down to nine at the 6:51 mark. The two teams traded points over the next two and a half minutes before a Gill 3-pointer and a layup by junior wing Michael Zeno (IDS/Business) made it 68-63 with 3:09 to play.
 
Taplin's first rally-answering trey was matched by another Gill 3-pointer, but Tulsa quieted any talks of UNO coming all the way back with a free throw by T.K. Edogi, another Taplin 3 and a Jaleel Wheeler free throw to stretch the lead back to double figures with 46 seconds remaining.
 
Edogi and Wheeler led four Golden Hurricane in double figures with 15 points apiece while Junior Etou and Taplin followed with respective scoring totals of 14 and 10. Edogi paced all players with 10 rebounds to complete the game's lone double-double and Etou led Tulsa with five assists.
 
The Privateers return to action on Tuesday, Nov. 25, when they travel to Los Angeles to take on Southern California at 8 p.m. in the Galen Center. That game will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks. UNO's next home game is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 25, when it play host to Florida College at 7 p.m. in Lakefront Arena. For tickets to that game, and future Privateer Athletics events, contact the UNO Athletics Ticket Office over the phone at (504) 280-GAME (4263) or via the Internet by clicking HERE.