Old Titan

A little bit about a lot from an ORU fan: • First off, congrats on a great season so far. Your guys played hard. • I've NEVER seen this year's version of the Zips play, but watching you today reminded me a LOT of our cross-town rival, the University of Tulsa: plenty enough talent, but WAY too many substitutions, too many different styles of play among the line-up combinations, causing the team to play in spurts, instead of with any consistent flow. Your coach needs to quit worrying about keeping everyone happy with playing time, settle on a 6-to-7 man rotation , and let those guys play together for longer stretches of time. If ORU had a kid like Marshall, he would never leave the floor unless he was in foul trouble - and he would touch the ball almost every possession. What a waste! • Two of those referees you guys recognized as "MAC refs" also call a lot of games in the Summit League (Bo Boroski and Mike Sanzere). Sanzere has screwed ORU over more times than I can count He's just a really terrible referee - misses a LOT of calls. • Marshall's block of Bell-Holter during your run was clean. But, to Bell-Holter's credit, he did "take it to" Marshall all night, and kept him on his heels defensively. I'm certain there were a couple of plays inside where Marshall did NOT get whistled for a foul, specifically during that same run, so it really does even out. • ORU out-rebounds everyone, and wins ugly, in the Sutton-family style. Everyone ORU beats leaves the floor scratching their heads, feeling like ORU simply isn't that good. It's just the way ORU plays - ugly, but efficient. • Your point guard (#11) is a warrior. I also really liked Treadwell. But do they ever run any plays for him? • The Zips 3-point shooting looked even worse from my seat in the fourth row. Their shots were off by a LOT. • And yes, ORU does not zone much, because there are so many great shooters in the Summit League, and they all torch zones. SIX of the top 20 scorers in the country play in the Summit. Gotta be honest with you guys, this version of the Zips would be just one of five teams fighting for the top in the Summit: South Dakota State, North Dakota State, and Oakland are on most nights just as good as ORU, and I'm not so sure SDSU isn't better than ORU - the two teams split in the regular season, and SDSU beat Buffalo today by 20 in their BracketBuster game. • Those of you watching at home missed an unfortunate play at the end of the game, as the ESPN cameras cut away from the final seconds on the floor to show the players and coaches shaking hands. Two of your guys ran up and double-teamed Morrison with about 2 seconds left as he was standing at half-court waiting for the clock to run out, slapped the ball from his hands, then launched a 3 at the buzzer for the final score. Is that something you guys have seen them do before, when your opponent is trying to show respect at the end of a game by not running up the score? Just sayin'...