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Tulsa win among most surprising in Mayor's Cup history
Published: 12/22/2012 10:03 PM
Last Modified: 12/26/2012 6:04 PM

During the Mayor’s Cup men’s basketball rivalry between Tulsa and Oral Roberts, there haven’t been a lot of upsets in their 48 meetings, but there have been a few surprises.

TU’s 72-68 win over ORU on Saturday at Mabee Center ranks among the most improbable outcomes in the series. ORU led 45-28 early in the second half and as TU coach Danny Manning said “the picture was not rosy” for his young team.

I’ve only missed attending two games in the series that dates back to 1974, Below is my list of the six most improbable results in this series:

1. ORU 60, Tulsa 59 (Dec. 11, 1999): TU led most of the game, but Nathan Binam’s 3-pointer that bounced all around the rim before falling through the net with 6.2 seconds left at Mabee Center stunned the previously unbeaten Golden Hurricane, which went 32-5 and reached the Elite Eight. ORU finished 13-17 in Scott Sutton’s first season as head coach.

2. Tulsa 91, ORU 83 (March 6, 1975); In the first meeting at Mabee Center, ORU jumped ahead 20-2, but the Hurricane rallied in the second half to give Ken Hayes a win in his farewell as TU’s head coach. ORU already had an NIT berth clinched while TU was only 15-14.

3. Tulsa 87, ORU 78 (March 6, 1976): Exactly a year later, a Tulsa team that finished 9-18 shocks ORU, which goes 20-6. It was TU’s first game at the Convention Center since 1964.

4. ORU 90, Tulsa 78 (Dec. 30, 1995): As detailed in Bill Haisten’s “Memorable Mabee Moments” in Friday’s paper, the Golden Eagles’ victory over 25th-ranked TU launched the Golden Eagles’ comeback as a major college basketball program under Bill Self.

5. Tulsa 72, ORU 68 (Dec. 22, 2012): In 2010, Tulsa rallied from a 36-21 deficit in the second half, but that Hurricane team was supposed to win that game and had seniors Jerome Jordan and Ben Uzoh, who would play in the NBA so a 57-52 comeback victory wasn’t shocking. Saturday’s TU win was stunning with freshmen and senior Scottie Haralson fueling the rally while ORU collapsed with mental mistakes. As Sutton said after the game about his team after crediting TU, “this is as disappointed in a group of guys as I’ve ever been in my life.”

6. ORU 59, Tulsa 55 (Jan. 5, 1987): A month earlier, TU routed ORU 71-44. TU was on the way to the NCAA Tournament while ORU would finish 11-17. But ORU led 31-13 at halftime in the worst offensive half of the J.D. Barnett era and held on to edge the Hurricane at Mabee Center.

Also considered: Tulsa’s 85-84 win in the first Mayor’s Cup game in 1974 over an ORU team that reached the Elite Eight wasn’t stunning except that it looked bleak for TU when it trailed by 10 with five minutes left. That was a good Tulsa team that should have received an NIT berth and it was playing at home at Expo Square Pavilion with the game considered a tossup.

-- Barry Lewis


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ORU Sports

Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. Since 2001, he has been honored more than 30 times in Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists contests for sports reporting, sports columns and sports features. He is the Oklahoma State football beat writer and the Oral Roberts basketball beat writer. In 2007, he wrote a book about OSU football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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