SMU-Tulsa w/ Denny Holman comments - cusa-fans.com

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Early Blow
Tulsa’s 16-0 Gale-Force Start Too Much For SMU
By Rick Atkinson, for cusa-fans.com
http://www.cusa-fans.com/

DALLAS – There are a slow starts – and then there’s showing up ten minutes late for a game. There’s cold – and then there’s the temperature of Ted Williams’ noggin.

On Wednesday, SMU (6-9, 0-2) started about as slow and cold as a team can - missing its first eight shots as Tulsa’s Golden Hurricane sprinted to a 16-0 lead – and that spelled 63-56 defeat for the Mustangs in their conference home opener before 2,104 fans.

A Paul McCoy free throw finally got SMU on the board seven minutes in, drawing a sustained cheer from the Mustang faithful. SMU’s first field goal, a jumper by Frank Otis from the paint, came two minutes later, with the opening stanza half gone.

The Mustangs trailed, 26-17, at halftime after a paltry 21.7-percent (5-23) shooting performance - with a few ugly attempts not coming close.

“We dug ourselves a pretty good hole in the first half,” said SMU coach Matt Doherty. … Then we settled in and I thought did a lot of good things. You look at the stat sheet and you say we could have come away with a win there.”

“But they’re a good team: preseason No. 1 in our league. Their defense is very good. It makes it difficult to get quality shots.”

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Curiously, the game turned out to be winnable for the Mustangs, who trailed, 34-30, near the midpoint of the second half, thanks to their own stingy defense and an offensive surge from Papa Dia and Mouhammad Faye.

But Tulsa’s ensuing 3-point blitz, led by Justin Hurtt, finished SMU. Five straight 3s gave the ‘Cane its largest lead of the night - 17 points - with 7:55 to play, and a few Mustang fans reached for their jackets and headed out.

Tulsa hit 7-of-8 second-half 3s and SMU had no answer, going 1-for-7 from the beyond the arc for the game.

Hurtt and Ben Uzoh paced Tulsa (13-3, 3-0) with 17 and 16 points, respectively. The two combined for 7-of-14 3-point shooting, with Hurtt hitting 4-of-5 in the second half.

“In the second half,” Doherty said, “I though we lost Hurtt a couple of times, and Uzoh, for some timely threes. Hurtt seems to do that to us. He did it to us last year. He’s a real, real threat.”

“And it makes it tough when you have really good players inside like [Tulsa’s Jerome] Jordan and [Steven] Idlet.”
Faye led the Mustangs with 17 points and Dia collected 15 points and 10 boards for his fifth double-double of the season.

Holman’s Take

“It was just a horrible start,” said SMU’s 1966-67 All-Southwest Conference point guard Denny Holman. “They couldn’t find the rim. When they made the comeback, they really went to the basket. I thought they played really hard in the comeback stretch.”

“I hated to see them come up short, but those three-pointers that Tulsa hit … were pretty tough on us.”

“I thought [Faye] had a great game,” Holman said, “and I think Papa really went to the basket hard. Those two guys really played with pretty good intensity.”

“[SMU’s] got to shoot the ball better. Clearly that’s what’s missing right now.”

The Mustangs’ defense forced 15 Tulsa turnovers, including nine steals, for a 12-4 points-off-turnovers edge. McCoy, Dia, Otis and Justin Haynes had two steals each.

And SMU turned the ball over just five times, its fewest total ever in a C-USA game.

“Our defense has been pretty good – for the most part,” Doherty said. “We held [Tulsa] to 63 points. They were averaging 78.”

“It’s more tonight on our offense. We’ve got to put the ball in the basket.”

McCoy, SMU’s leading scorer a year ago, still struggles. He had five points against Tulsa, on 0-for-5 shooting from the field and 55-percent from the line (5-9). He was also the only Mustang to play all 40 minutes.

Assists for McCoy also seem hexed. His best opportunity for one this night – a nice dish under the basket in the second half - was lost when Faye’s slam-dunk try spectacularly clanged off the rim.

In this season’s two league contests, McCoy is 1-of-10 from the field with two assists and he’s averaging 3.5 points per game. Doherty said two weeks ago the team would likely be 8-3 instead of 5-6 with even a “normal, average Paul McCoy.”

Still, Doherty said he’s not close to sitting his sophomore guard, adding that other teams key on him after his freshman success.

“He does a lot,” Doherty said. “His steals, his energy, his ability to drive the basketball. No, no. He’s one of ‘those guys.’ You stick with him. I’ll ride that horse and trust that he’ll spin out of it.”

“We’ve got to try to generate some opportunities for him a little bit more. Hopefully, that will get him going.”

“We’ve played two of the toughest teams in the league,” Doherty said of UTEP and Tulsa. “UTEP smoked Oklahoma. They’re good. Tulsa crushed Oklahoma State. They’re good teams. We weren’t picked in the top two or three in our league. We playing very competitively with these teams and realize that if we keep doing what we’re doing, and get better at it, the wins will come.”

Doherty said opening with two conference losses hasn’t derailed the Mustangs’ objectives. “Our goal is still to have a winning season,” he said. “We still have one non-conference game and we hope we can have a winning season in Conference USA. Our goals haven’t changed and we still want to try to win the league. There’s a lot of golf left.”

But will the Mustangs miss another tee-time?

Next two for SMU:
*Saturday, Jan. 16 vs. UAB, 7 p.m.
*Wednesday, Jan. 20 at Rice, 7 p.m.

Notes:
*Denny Holman played on three consecutive SWC Championship teams for SMU from 1964-67. As a senior, Holman and the Mustangs defeated No. 2 Louisville, 83-81, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Elvin Hayes and No. 7 Houston. Holman led SMU with 16.5 points per game that year, legendary coach E.O. “Doc” Hayes’ twentieth and final season at SMU.
*Holman, on watching games at SMU’s venerable Moody Coliseum now: “I’m sad that we don’t have more fans here because … this is a great coliseum when the crowd’s really into it. … It still gives me goose-bumps to hear the band and everything that takes place here. It’s such a great basketball venue, to play here. It really is. I think we’re going to get it back. We haven’t yet, but we’re working on it.”


Papa Dia, left, collected his fifth double-double of the season on Wednesday

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Denny Holman..revelantly glorious!!

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Denny remembers...even though PonyDoh doesn't