Scott Sutton was agitated on Thursday after his ORU Golden Eagles beat Western Illinois by 10. Just imagine his irateness Saturday night, when ORU was dump-trucked at the Mabee Center by South Dakota.
It wasn't pretty.
"As disappointed as I was Thursday, I think I'm quite a bit more tonight," said the always-candid Sutton, whose quotes are always refreshingly honest — even with his boss Mike Carter sitting in the room after every home game.
"I did not see that coming. I thought our guys would respond, and we just got kicked."
What did Sutton not see coming, you ask? He didn't see South Dakota demolishing the Golden Eagles, 83-70, on the evening of Valentine's Day.
No one did. ORU was an eight-point favorite in Vegas. The Golden Eagles had beaten South Dakota once this season, a one-point victory in Vermillion on Jan. 31.
But when the Coyotes came out scorching hot, that was it. ORU fell behind — way behind in the first half — and the hill was too high to climb.
So, with that, here are the gruesome details...
The good: I thought Aaron Young and Darian Harris played well in the first half. Young attacked the rim — which I think we'll start to see more of as his career progresses. Harris buried some 3-pointers in the first half and looked like the shooter that the Golden Eagles had been hoping for.
But both disappeared — like witness protection disappeared — in the second half. Harris finished with nine points — all in the first half; Young's six points were all in the game's first 20 minutes.
It's been repeated nonstop, but guys like Young and Harris have to play key supporting roles if the Golden Eagles are going to alleviate any scoring pressure off of Obi Emegano and Korey Billbury.
- ORU was 12 of 12 at the free throw line. Never can complain with a 100-percent shooting effort.
Well, wait a minute. The gripe can be that the Golden Eagles didn't get to the line enough.
- Emegano didn't play half bad. A 19-point, four-steal, four-rebound effort is usually nothing to scoff at. He did go 7 of 19 from the floor, but no one else was making shots for ORU, so he had to become a volume shooter.
Same story, different verse.
- ORU had 13 assists to seven turnovers. Close to a 2:1 ratio is something a coach will take most nights.
That just shows how bad ORU was in other areas.
Unfortunately for ORU fans, that's where the good ends. Prepare yourselves, though, because the bad could get lengthy.
The bad: Have to start with Denell Henderson. Biggest game of ORU's season to date and he shows up late. Per Sutton, Henderson said he overslept.
ORU sticks to the same routine before every game, and I noticed when Henderson came jogging out of the tunnel while his teammates were stretching. I thought that seemed odd, but I thought maybe Henderson was getting extra treatment in the training room.
Apparently not.
Henderson played 15 minutes, scored nine points and grabbed six rebounds. And Sutton debated whether he should have played Henderson at all.
"He showed up late before the game, and he didn’t deserve to play," Sutton said. "Didn’t deserve to start, and I’m not sure he deserved to play."
- No context is really needed for this quote:
"I think it's the worst loss ... in (16) years," said Sutton, in the midst of his 16th at the helm for the Golden Eagles. "...I don't remember getting beat like this. On top of that, how big of a game it was."
Pretty much sums it up.
- Korey Billbury was 4 of 16 from the field, and he ended up with 11 points. Some nights, shots just won't fall, but Billbury has to find a way to be better than 25 percent from the floor.
He did, however, make an impact with eight rebounds and five assists. So have to give credit there.
- South Dakota, despite a lot of shots being off-balance, was shooting 70 percent at one point in the first half. Best example: Casey Kasperbauer was throwing in shots from all over the Mabee Center, throwing up long, high-arcing shots that seemed to drop from the ceiling. Most went in.
Kasperbauer was 6 of 9 from the field and 4 of 5 from deep, including a 3 he made in the second half from the right corner, after which he stared down ORU's Bobby Word. (Ya know, the kind of taunting the NCAA's no-fun police would lose its mind over if the officials had half a clue as to what's going on out there.)
Later in the game, Kasperbauer drained two free throws and gave the same piercing glance toward a section filled with ORU students, whose attempts to rattle the shooter were foiled.
Basically, Kasperbauer was red hot and staring everyone down. That's likely how I'll remember this game years from now — aside from the fact that remembering the game in future years will surely serve zero purpose.
- ORU was out-rebounded 41 to 27, a margin that matched ORU's largest deficit of the year. Making matters worse, South Dakota coach Craig Smith after the game talked about how small his team is.
ORU isn't the tallest team in the world, but getting out-rebounded by South Dakota shouldn't happen. A lot of rebounds qualified as loose-ball battles, that almost all went in South Dakota's favor.
- South Dakota won all the hustle plays. Pretty much just re-read the item above this^^.
The reality: By the end of the season, the narrative for this ORU team may read along these lines: quality scorers, decent role players, serviceable big men, and a solid coaching staff, but none of it meshed together and produced what ORU was capable of. It's like someone put the track on repeat, and no one could figure out how to turn it off.
It's been repeated ad nauseam this year, but ORU has two players that are capable of putting up big point totals (Billbury and Emegano). The role guys — Young, Harris, Word, Singleton and Webber — are far from great, but should be able to handle the responsibilities thrown their way. The big men — Henderson, Owens and Conley — should be able to band together to give other teams some problems, especially when Henderson is locked in and ready to go.
But none of it has gelled to the point where it felt like the Golden Eagles would go on a torrid run through the league. There was always an underlying feeling that ORU would slip up somewhere along the way.
Even Sutton admitted somewhat to that point after the South Dakota game.
"These guys, can't figure them out," Sutton said. "If you had told me before the game that you guys have a chance to control your own destiny, if you win these last five games, to become conference champions. And for them to go out and play like they did is unacceptable and really disappointing."
Unacceptable and really disappointing — barring a massive turnaround in the last couple of weeks, that could be the motto of ORU's 2014-2015 season.
Summit League picture with two weeks to go...
In contention for a league title
1. South Dakota State (19-8, 10-3) - 3 games left (at Western Illinois; vs. Oral Roberts; at South Dakota).
2. North Dakota State (18-8, 10-3) - 3 games left (vs. IUPUI; vs. IPFW; at Oral Roberts).
Fighting for third
3. IPFW (14-11, 7-5) - 4 games left (at Denver; at North Dakota State; vs. Omaha; vs. Western Illinois).
4. Oral Roberts (14-12, 7-5) - 4 games left (at Omaha; at South Dakota State; vs. North Dakota State; vs. Denver).
5. South Dakota (14-12, 7-6) - 3 conference games left (vs. IUPUI; vs. Denver; vs. South Dakota State).
The rest
6. IUPUI (9-17, 5-7)
7. Denver (10-15, 4-8)
8. Western Illinois (8-15, 3-9)
9. Omaha (9-16, 3-10)
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