Birt powers Tulsa past Houston
In a revenge game that Tulsa absolutely had to win, Pat Birt was on fire in the first half, and that was enough to knock Houston down so far that it couldn’t recover.
Birt scored 19 of his game-high 27 points in the first half as Tulsa blew past Houston 77-63 on Sunday afternoon in front of 4,321 at the Reynolds Center.
The tone of the game was set when Rashad Smith slammed down a one-handed put-back just over a minute in for the first score of the game. Birt scored his first bucket two minutes into a contest where the Golden Hurricane never trailed.
“We remember what they did to us at their house,” said Smith of the humiliating 81-66 loss at Houston just 11 days ago. “It came down to being tough and playing with a lot of energy.”
Tulsa (15-8, 7-4 AAC) was anything but tough in the first meeting, getting manhandled and outhustled while never really being in the game.
“That’s a very prideful team,” said Houston coach Kelvin Sampson of Tulsa. “I think we were up 61-37 at one point on them in Houston. Those guys want to do something about that now. I knew that coming in.”
Birt was the key. He scored over half of Tulsa’s first half points as TU went into halftime up 34-23. The Golden Hurricane scored the first seven points of the second half to increase the lead to 41-23, and Houston was done.
Birt connected on 7 of 10 shots from the field in the first half, including 3 of 5 on three-pointers.
“I was just doing what their defense gave me,” Birt said. “They know that I’m a good three-point shooter, so I just showed them some versatility by attacking the glass, shooting mid-range pull-ups and stuff like that, just so it would be hard for their defense to guard me, and to open it up for everybody else.”
The most important stretch in the game came with Tulsa leading only 19-18 after a 30-foot three-pointer by Houston’s Galen Robinson. But Robinson got called for a technical foul on the way back down the court, and Tulsa went on a 13-0 run to take control of the game.
An alley-oop dunk by Shaquille Harrison and a tough jumper by Birt made Sampson burn a timeout with the Cougars down just 24-18, but that timeout only seemed to fire up Tulsa more. Consecutive threes and a two-pointer by Birt caused another timeout, and Tulsa was all of a sudden up 32-18
“The Birt kid started feeling it,” Sampson said. “He made a lot of hard shots. He made a lot of hard threes at the end of the shot clock. But that’s our job to make them uncomfortable.
“The Birt kid has given them a nice dynamic.”
Birt has been playing well lately, averaging 12.5 points in conference play coming into the game, and 10.3 points for the season.
“I think it’s Pat,” TU coach Frank Haith said about the key for Tulsa “Obviously, him just getting more adjusted and getting more comfortable. He allows us to do different things because he’s a threat. When he’s out there, people have to guard him. It just opens up things with Shaq and Juice more.”
James “Juice” Woodard scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half, and Harrison added 10 points.
“Those are two good teams,” Sampson said. “That’s a game that we should beat them in Houston and they should probably beat us here. That’s a very prideful team. I like senior teams. They could go anywhere and beat anybody.”
Houston (16-7, 6-5) was playing its second consecutive game without leading scorer Rob Gray, who is averaging 17.3 points per game. He scored 16 points against Tulsa at Houston on 5 of 15 shooting from the field.
Gray’s absence, due to a sprained ankle, hurt Houston, but the Cougars were able to defeat SMU at home Monday night without Gray.
For the Golden Hurricane, bouncing back from a disastrous ending against Temple on Thursday night was important, especially considering the Golden Hurricane’s next two games come at SMU on Wednesday night and UConn on Saturday night.
“We had our chances the other night against Temple and we didn’t finish it, and we learned from it,” said Haith. “You can’t hang your head, and you’ve got to move on to the next one.”
This week will tell a lot about whether Tulsa has any realistic chance of an at-large NCAA bid. At least one road victory this week would be a huge plus.
“There are so many teams in our league that are about the same,” Sampson said. “SMU is good, but obviously they are not unbeatable. Anybody can beat anybody any given night.”
BOX SCORE: Tulsa 77, Houston 63