Golden Eagles beat MACU, fall to Missouri State
The Oral Roberts University men’s basketball team got a 74-69 home win over Mid-America Christian University on Friday night at the Mabee Center before losing 84-69 to Missouri State on Monday night in Springfield, Mo.
The Oral Roberts University men’s basketball team got a 74-69 home win over Mid-America Christian University on Friday night at the Mabee Center before losing 84-69 to Missouri State on Monday night in Springfield, Mo.
In Friday’s win, the Golden Eagles (1-2) extended its home game win streak to 17 and delivered the first win of the Russell Springmann era.
In what was a memorable night as fans returned to the Mabee Center looking to watch the Golden Eagles try to extend one of the nation’s longest winning streaks to 17. A crowd of 6,002 saw ORU win its home opener with a squad that had three newcomers on the floor and one true freshman.
Issac McBride led all scorers with 19 points and went 8-for-8 from the foul line to secure the home win for ORU.
The Golden Eagles closed the first half on a 13-4 run over the final four minutes to build a 4132 advantage at the break. ORU could never build a comfortable double-digit lead however as the Evangels had wiped out that deficit by the 11:31 mark after Conner Calavan buried his third consecutive three for the visitors.
Eddie Smith would give MACU a 63-62 edge with 3:12 to go but McBride would give his squad the lead back for good with a pair of free-throws on ORU’s next possession. The Evangels would scoreless over the next 2:44, allowing the Golden Eagles to clinch their initial win of the campaign.
DeShang Weaver added 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the floor, while Kareem Thompson chipped in with 15 points and Jailen Bedford added 13 in his home debut to give ORU a quartet of doubledigit scorers. Magok Manyang led the Evangels with 16 points, while Seth Hurd scored all 12 of his points in the second half on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor. Manyang went 4-for-6 from beyond the arc to lead a MACU effort from deep that saw the visitors make 12-of-26 attempts.
In Monday night’s loss, the game started with a pair of 3-point buckets traded by each team to open the game. McBride had a spark of offensive production with two and-1 opportunities that he took advantage of. Missouri State went on a 6-0 run to go up 20-14 at the under 12 timeout. Weaver cut the run with a triple, but MSU answered on the following possession. After a three-plus minute scoring drought for ORU, MSU went on another little run, despite ORU playing solid defense. The run was snapped by McBride on a fastbreak that he created with a block on the defensive end. Another three-plus minute scoring drought for ORU saw the Bears lead 30-19 with four minutes left in the half. The Golden Eagles trailed 39-27 at the break while shooting 33 percent from the field. McBride led ORU with 10 first half points ORU trailed by as much as 18. Jalen Miller cut it to 15 when he scored a three-pointer with 10 minutes left in the second. With seven minutes left, MSU took its largest lead of the game by 24 due to a 7-0 run. ORU then went on a 9-0 run to pull to within 14 with four minutes to play. Down the stretch, ORU tried to take advantage of MSU’s missed free-throws, but the Bears pulled out the 84-69 win.
The Golden Eagles had three double-digit scorers with McBride leading the way with 27 points in the game. Weaver had 11 and Miller, who got his first start as a Golden Eagle, scored 10. Despite being outrebounded by seven, ORU did grab more offensive boards than MSU by two.
