The good: Can start by mentioning that ORU beat IUPUI 69-61 in overtime. Any win is good, right?
ORU coach Scott Sutton wasn't in any mood to reject a Summit League victory in the media work room after the game.
"Sometimes, the team that deserves to win doesn't," Sutton said. "That was probably the case tonight."
Depends on how you look at it, I suppose.
ORU, now one game under .500 overall at 7-8 and 1-1 in Summit League play, led IUPUI for 35 minutes and one second, so the Golden Eagles were clearly in charge for most of the game. They just weren't ahead of the pack in crunch time.
Fortunately for ORU, it pieced together a rally and IUPUI's Marcellus Barksdale left the door open for a comeback when he missed a free throw with 13 seconds left. The miss kept the Jaguars' lead at three, and Bobby Word connected on a 3-pointer that featured anything but ideal form and charisma with one second left.
"I wasn't expecting it to go in, I promise ya," Sutton said. "Nothing against Bobby."
It was Word's only 3-pointer he connected on during the game. He had one wayward attempt in the first half.
For the third time in four games and for the fifth time this season, guard Korey Billbury scored 20-plus points for the Golden Eagles. He notched a game-high 23 points, made nine of 20 field goals and grabbed seven rebounds to go along with two blocks.
"Overall, the game was a confidence boost, just to take care of the win at home," Billbury said. "Coach emphasizes that we need to go undefeated at home and take care of business here first to be a championship-contending team."
ORU avoided a repeat of the 2000-2001 season, when the Golden Eagles stared league play 0-2.
"To go to 0-2 and losing a home game would have been a tough hill to climb," Sutton said. "I'll take it."
A cringe-worthy scene in the first half for ORU fans turned into a huge sigh of relief. At the 15:50 mark of the first half, guard Obi Emegano, ORU's leading scorer this season, went down hard and didn't immediately get up. He eventually made it to his feet, and he gingerly limped to the locker room.
That's horrifying for ORU fans, knowing the Emegano missed all but three games for the Golden Eagles last year because of an ACL tear.
But, Emegano returned midway through the first half, and he collected nine points in 34 minutes.
Sutton elaborated on Emegano's status after the game.
"He hyper-extended his knee. He kept telling me he was OK, but I could tell it obviously it wasn't OK. Sometimes 75 percent Obi is better than what we have on the bench.
"He kept telling me he was fine, but I probably should have rested him and got somebody else in the game. You know when he misses that many shots, he's not OK."
Also worth mentioning that ORU showed some grit late in the game — down five with 33 seconds left — and managed to prolong the game to overtime. Golden Eagles, just as easily, could have packed it in and started sulking about another loss.
ORU has played five games at home, and the Golden Eagles are unbeaten in those. Winning at home is always a good thing.
The bad: Emegano, shooting 42.5 percent (68 of 160) from the field prior to playing IUPUI, went 3 of 11 from the floor against the Jaguars. His nine points weren't a season-low since he was limited to seven points at both Oregon State and Weber State. He was also scoreless at Oklahoma.
Emegano's less-than-100 percent health also kept him from getting to the free-throw line — a trait that he's one of the best in the nation at. Emegano got the foul line five times, and he only made two of the freebies.
ORU's bench had been outscored by opponents in eight games prior to Wednesday night, and it happened again versus IUPUI. The Jags — who could make an instructional video on how not to score — had 17 points off their bench against ORU. The Golden Eagles' bench logged 59 minutes and scored only 11 points — nine of which came from Word.
ORU led by as many as nine in the first half. The Golden Eagles possessed a 10-point lead in the second half. Both of those leads waved bye-bye in mere minutes.
Looking disinterested early on, IUPUI looked like it could have been finished off by even a halfway forceful effort from the Golden Eagles. Yet, the door was left open for the Jaguars to hang around, and they gladly accepted.
"I'm disappointed in how our guys played," Sutton said. "After we built leads of nine points in the first half, and then we built a lead of 10 points in the second half, we just quit playing. We're not good enough to do that. We're not good enough just to coast in and beat anybody. Guys have to learn that."
Adrion Webber was considered a big key for ORU this season. His 3-point shooting ability was supposed to be marksman-like, allowing ORU a constant deep threat any time he's on the floor.
It hasn't worked out that way. Webber is shooting 27.8 percent (10 of 36) from deep, and his minutes are starting to dwindle. Outside of playing 21 minutes against Haskell, Webber hasn't played more than 14 minutes in a game since Dec. 20.
Jabbar Singleton played nine minutes against IUPUI, and here's his final stat line: zero points, zero shot attempts, zero rebounds, zero assists, one steal and two personal fouls. That's not going to cut it for any player anywhere.
The reality: ORU didn't make it a thing of beauty, but victories are to be cherished. That's how Sutton is going to view it.
What we all need to realize is that ORU and IUPUI are destined to play overtime games all the time. In 35 of the meetings between the two teams, seven have now gone to overtime. So fans in Indianapolis on Feb. 5 had better prepare themselves.
South Dakota State blew out Western Illinois on Wednesday, so ORU can either further damage the Leathernecks' psyche or the Golden Eagles can allow Western Illinois off the mat. ORU will tip at Macomb, Illinois on Saturday night at 7.
Basically, the Summit League is wide open. IPFW is in last place at 0-2, and the Mastadons were picked to win the league. North Dakota State was picked in the middle of the pack, but it's 2-0 looks indestructible at home. There are now five teams tied at 1-1 in Summit League play.
Really, it's there for the taking. Just depends on which Summit League team wants to get hot and rattle off a 7- to 10-game winning streak.
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