Oral Roberts 76, Arkansas 62

[Dawg04]

some thoughts from fans who watched the Ark/Oral Roberts game:

1)Arkansas on the other hand, was horrible. One player just dribbled out of bounds with no one around him in the second half. Earlier in that half, one player was dribbling over by Coach Heath, and a teammate came and literally kicked the ball out of his dribble. Makes me wonder if the fix was in.

Arkansas played little defense, and when they attempted an offensive set, it consisted of one pass and someone dribble in and throw up some crap, or turn it over. They would also attempt LONG 3 pointers for no apparent reason. Stan Heath definitely has his work cut out for him.


2)The game came down to free throws. ORU took advantage of every whistle and made almost every free throw. Some key three pointers stopped every Hog rally.

Arkansas is still a very good team certainly capable of beating TU at home. The guards do not play like Freshmen and have good skills. Ferguson must have driven to the hole 9-10 times and only one charge was taken by ORU. Davis has a good shot but was inconsistent.

Jones will provide a big mismatch for us as he is 6'9" and plays outside very much like the big guy on Fresno (forgot his name) Made 5 or 6 treys ...our small guards will be no match, except that he can't guard them either.


TU got to scout the Arkansas full court press and saw how ORU broke it with the Eddie Sutton press breaker (the outlet to the post man coming up the side).

The Arkansas young players seemed to lose their composure when things didn't go well but that is an often seen road experience. I expect them to be ready Saturday.

[Dawg04]

Oral Roberts 76, Arkansas 62
Nov. 26, 2002
SportsLine.com wire reports




TULSA, Okla. -- Luke Spencer-Gardner had 19 points, eight rebounds and seven assists to lead Oral Roberts past Arkansas 76-62 on Tuesday night.

Spencer-Gardner, a 6-1 junior guard, scored 13 points in the second half to help ORU (2-0) steadily pull away from the Razorbacks (1-1), who trailed 37-32 at halftime.

Tyrone Tiggs added 18 points while Reggie Borges scored 13 points and had a game-high eight rebounds for the Golden Eagles.

Arkansas' Kendrick Davis led all scorers with 23 points and teammate Michael Jones added 14 points.

Spencer-Gardner's 3-pointer opened post-intermission scoring and the addition of two more treys in the next six minutes helped build a 50-38 lead for the Golden Eagles with 13:45 left.

After a 3-pointer by Jones with 9:20 left cut ORU's lead to 59-50, ORU went on a 10-4 run, capped by Josh Atkinson's 3-pointer that made it 69-54 at 5:20.

Cold shooting from the field derailed Arkansas' second-half comeback hopes as the Razorbacks hit only 8-of-32.

[Dawg04]

Here's some video highlights http://www.arkansasnbc.com/sports/video/

[ARKDAWG02]

Arkansas will be hard pressed to win many road games this year. Unfortunately we catch them at home. I believe we are capable of winning if our guards play well. It appears that is the key to our season. If someone steps up outside to compliment our inside game we'll be in good shape. Our big guys should dominate the Arkansas big guys inside though.