PonyTime wrote:Tulsa has been our most consistent Rival over the last 20 years.
You could say the same about Houston - but Houston really was not all that good for most of that time and Tulsa was in the Tourney at least half of those years.
The Dement era games vs Tulsa were some of the only sell-outs of that time period (The crowd of 8,998 for the below 2OT game was the most for SMU against a WAC opponent in school history.). Of course, TU would bring a lot of fans down.
Take a Quick Trip back to March of 2000 if you need more reason to hate TulsaDALLAS (Ticker) -- Tony Heard scored 24 points and David Shelton
added 18 as 17th-ranked Tulsa clinched the Western Athletic
Conference regular-season title with its ninth straight victory
over Southern Methodist, 83-78, in double overtime.
Tulsa (27-3, 12-2 WAC) won its first regular-season title since
capturing the Missouri Valley Conference in 1994-95 and will be
the top seed in next week's WAC Tournament. The Golden
Hurricane are 8-3 against the Mustangs in Dallas and have not
lost to them since December 28, 1963.
Jeryl Sasser's jumper with 32 seconds left in regulation put SMU
ahead 63-30, but Tulsa forced overtime when Tony Heard drilled a
3-pointer with two seconds left.
SMU had a chance to take the lead late in the first overtime,
but Sasser missed a pair of free throws with 12 seconds left.
Heard missed a 3-pointer in the closing seconds.
The Golden Hurricane cruised in the second overtime, opening a
79-70 lead with 29 seconds left thanks to a 10-1 run. Eric
Coley scored four points in that spurt and SMU missed its first
six attempts from the field.
Brandon Kurtz had 15 points and 18 rebounds in 45 minutes with
Marcus Hill adding 11 points as the Golden Hurricane improved to
13-4 all-time against the Mustangs.
Heard played 47 minutes and was 7-of-14 from the floor to help
Tulsa shoot 43 percent (25-of-58), including 52 percent
(11-of-21) in the second half.
The Golden Hurricane survived despite allowing 20 offensive
rebounds and committing 27 turnovers.
Willie Davis had 23 points and 10 rebounds for his 12th
double-double of the season and Sasser added 15 and 10 for SMU
(21-7, 9-5), which will be the third seed in the conference
tournament.
The Mustangs did not help themselves on the line, making just
15-of-30. They entered the contest shooting 66 percent from the
stripe, second to last in the league, and dropped their second
straight after winning five in a row.
"I am proud of the way we played," SMU coach Mike Dement said.
"We played to exhaustion and had chances to win the game, but we
struggled from the free throw line. We didn't have anything
left in the tank in the second overtime after fighting back so
hard for so long."
The crowd of 8,998 was the most for SMU against a WAC opponent
in school history.