Tulsa Scores Most Points in School History with a 100-92 Win Over East Carolina

Tuesday, January 31

Reynolds Center

7:00 pm

Tulsa

8-14 (4-5AAC)

100

East Carolina

10-12 (1-8AAC)

OT 1

East Carolina

Tulsa

100

Tulsa Scores Most Points in School History with a 100-92 Win Over East Carolina

1/31/2017 10:01:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: Don Tomkalski

BOX SCORE PDF I BOX SCORE HTML I SEASON STATS

Tulsa (8-14, 4-5 AAC) scored its most points in school history as the Golden Hurricane claimed a 100-92 overtime victory over East Carolina (10-12, 1-8 AAC) Tuesday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

A pair of Tulsa freshmen, forward Kendrian Elliott and guard Shug Dickson, reached the 20-point plateau for the Hurricane. Elliott had a season-high 27 points, while Dickson had her fifth 20+ scoring game in the last six contests. Erika Wakefield added 18 points and Liesl Spoerl chipped in 17 points for the Hurricane cause. Elliott and Spoerl each had a double-double as the duo each grabbed 13 of Tulsa's 49 rebounds.

"I am just really proud of our kids. It was a gutty effort by a bunch of people. Look at how many minutes Erika played with 42, but she is a trooper and a stud. Kendrian had a career-high 27 points and her and Liesl both get a double-double, and Shug finishes just one board shy of a double-double. All of them were just solid tonight," said Head Coach Matilda Mossman.

I didn't think we defended well early on, but then we went through a spurt where we had to get stops and we did. It is just an unbelievable feeling knowing we had that kind of effort and got rewarded for our effort."

Spoerl scored Tulsa's 100^th point on a free throw to establish a new team scoring record for the Hurricane, breaking the previous best of 98 points against East Central (Okla.) in December 1980.

The Pirates finished the fourth quarter by scoring 31 points and sending the game into overtime, as Tulsa also tallied its most points in a quarter with 24. ECU's Khadidja Toure tied the score at 82 and sent the game into the extra session with a 5-foot jumper as time expired.

Tulsa led by as many as 11 points in the fourth period before the Pirates went on a 15-3 run to take a 79-78 lead with 0:52 left on the game clock. Elliott's two free throws at the 5:11 mark gave Tulsa the 11-point advantage at 75-64, but over the next 4:19 Tulsa's only points came on three Wakefield free throws. Dickson scored Tulsa's next four points to put the Hurricane ahead 82-79 at the 0:19 mark before an ECU free throw and Toure's buzzer-beating jumper to force the overtime.

In the overtime period, Tulsa tallied the first seven points, starting with a Wakefield three-pointer. Tulsa went on to out-score the Pirates 18-10 in the extra five-minute period.

"Our mindset in overtime was the same as the second, third and fourth quarter, we have to get stops and we have to get rebounds," added Mossman. "They were killing us on the boards until the last couple minutes of the fourth quarter and in overtime."

After halftime, Tulsa came out of the locker room and took a 40-37 third-quarter lead before the Pirates tied the score at 40 with 9:11 remaining. The Hurricane then went on an 18-11 run, with most of the damage being done inside as Tulsa out-scored ECU 16-to-4 in the paint during that stretch to take a 58-51 lead into the final stanza.

The first half was nearly even between the two teams as the lead changed hands 10 times with the scored being tied nine times. Tulsa went into halftime with a one-point lead at 38-37. Tulsa scored 19 points in each of the first two quarters, while East Carolina also tallied 19 points in the first period and 18 in the second.

In the first quarter, Tulsa had the largest lead of the two teams with a five-point edge at 9-4 and again at 11-6 and 15-10. The Pirates took its first lead of the game at the 2:20 mark, 16-15, while Spoerl's layup with 0:19 left in the first quarter knotted the score at 19-19.

East Carolina retook the lead to start the second quarter and the scored was tied six times in that period until Elliott's free throw at the 0:32 mark put the Hurricane ahead 38-37.

Elliott led all scorers in the first-half with 12 points, followed by seven from fellow freshman Alexis Gaulden. Both teams shot an identical 43-percent, while the Hurricane made 10-of-12 free throws for 83-percent, compared to 42.9-percent for the Pirates on 3-of-7 from the charity stripe.

Tulsa goes on the road for its next two games to face the nation's No. 1-ranked UConn Huskies on Sunday, at 12 noon (CT), and next Wednesday at Temple in Philadelphia, Pa., for an 11 a.m. tipoff. The Hurricane returns to the Reynolds Center on Feb. 11, to host the UCF Knights in a 1 p.m. contest.