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NCAA Should be Only Goal
Published: 2/27/2009 10:14 AM
Last Modified: 2/27/2009 10:14 AM

Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton made it pretty clear on Thursday night that there is only one goal for his Golden Eagles.
After three straight NCAA Tournament appearances, Sutton said anything else would be a disappointment.
Forget seeds in the conference tournament. Don't worry about the all-conference team.
Sutton wants it known, both to his team and fans, that the NCAA Tournament is where they both should want to be.
Not the NIT. Not some unkown other post-season tournament.
That should be the goal of all four major college programs in the state. All four have the tradition, history, facilities and resources to reasonably expect to compete to be in the NCAA Tournament.
Of the four, ORU has the fewest opportunities. It must always win the conference tournament because the Summit League does not have the clout to get more than one invite.
Good for Sutton. The NCAA Tournament should be the only goal for local teams and he made that clear again on Thursday.



Reader Comments 6 Total
sax5084 (4 years ago)
Klein,

If Memphis was in ORU's league, he'd have a different tone, having to cut through a little more more than warm butter to get an auto-bid to the NCAA, or failing that, a regular season conference title and NIT berth.

As for ORU having fewer opportunities because of it's league, did you forget that ORU played non-conference games too? And went 2-10 in those, with one of those wins over non D1 John Brown? I bet you're excited to see them try to avenge their early season loss to freaking North Dakota State Saturday night.

Problem with Scott Sutton's talk is that you hardly even have to crawl, let alone walk, in the Summit league tourney to back it up.
ORUTerry (4 years ago)
This is a rebuilding year for ORU.... Sutton has done a great job of molding a lot of new players into a team. They are not as talented as some of the squads ORU has fielded over the last six years or so, but they can play defense and work together as a unit.

Yes, ORU struggled in their non-conference games as the new players worked to acclimate themselves to D-1 basketball. But they have put together a nice season and are on the verge of claiming another conference championship. The Summit League may not be great top to bottom, but ORU, NDSU and Oakland are good mid-major teams that could compete in most comparable leagues.
ORUisHome (4 years ago)
Memphis would definitely be a road block. But I think we would narrow the margin to less than a 26 loss. That must be painful after a 1 pt loss at home. Plus. It should be noted that of the the first 12 loses, 11 were away and 4 were decided by 3pts or less and 9 of the them had rpi's less than 100.
ORU_TXAlum (4 years ago)
Listen Sax - I guarantee you that this years TU team would have a difficult time playing NDSU or Oakland.
If you're so realistic of your chances against Memphis, why don't you move down to a conference you can compete in? Obivously the "untouchable" Memphis Tigers are too much for a TU program who's days of playing great basketball are only a few years removed. The attitude you take should dissapoint any TU fan.
sax5084 (4 years ago)
Listen ORU_TXAlum, ORU just lost at home to NDSU by four times the margin Tulsa lost to Memphis by. I wasn't implying Tulsa couldn't beat Memphis (We did have a lead with 4.5 seconds remaining, hardly a blowout for the Tigers), it should have been obvious what I meant was ORU could never beat Memphis, which they can't.

As for Sutton's comments, it makes sense now. ORU has no chance to be selected to the NIT or CBI, the only thing they can do now is pull an upset and make the NCAA, it's really the only goal you guys have left, just like 300 other teams.
sax5084 (4 years ago)
Ah, box score says you guys only lost by three times more points than Tulsa did to Memphis, my apologies for the mistake.
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Klein's Korner

Tulsa World senior sports columnist John Klein is in his fourth decade of covering sports. He started his newspaper career at The Daily Ardmoreite in 1977 and moved to the Tulsa World in 1978. He served 10 years as sports editor for the Tulsa World before being named to his current position in 2005. He also spent five years as the Southwest Conference beat writer for the Houston Post. He has won many writing awards and is a former Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year.

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