Many times on the podcast we have sounded like a broken record when it comes to Oral Roberts Men’s Basketball team. I suppose that’s not a good thing for a podcast but here we are. The broken part of the record was us saying “if they consistently defend”. Basically saying that the Golden Eagles won’t win the Summit League crown until this happens.
We may have received a glimpse of that team in Oral Roberts Opening round victory over North Dakota. The game was filled with “if you would have told me’s” in regards to Oral Roberts offense. If you would have told me, Kevin Obanor would have had only 9 points, Max Abmas would go 0-6 from 3.
Enter DJ Weaver. Late first-half Weaver sparked the ORU offense and they controlled the game after that. Weaver was 6-6 from the field first half including hitting both his 3 point attempts on his way to a 14 point first half. Weaver finished with 18 points. There were some other big performances tonight, Carlos Jurgens finished with 11 points and 7 rebounds while adding 2 steals, and Kareem Thompson added 16. It should also be mentioned, Max Abmas while going 0-6 from 3, went 8-9 from inside the arc and finished with 21 points.
The story of the night however was what ORU did on the defensive side in holding North Dakota to 65 points. Jurgens was mentioned above but his active hands were consistently disrupting what the Fighting Hawks were attempting to do. The Golden Eagle defense shut down UND’s leading scorer Filip Rebraca, holding him to 8 points on 4-12 shooting. The fighting hawks as a team shot 40% from the field. It seemed to get UND out of rhythm after Rebraca left with an injury for a large chunk of the second half and the Fighting Hawks never really recovered.
The 4th seeded Golden Eagles move onto the semi-finals for the second straight season and prepare to take on the 1 seed South Dakota State Jackrabbits in what is sure to be a game full of excitement.