Tulsa’s Martins Igbanu scored a game high 23 points to pace the Golden Hurricane to a 79-57 home win over SMU (18-8, 8-6 AAC) Saturday.
Tulsa (18-9, 10-4 AAC) retired the jersey of legendary Bobby “Bingo” Smith (No. 32) in a ceremony at the game.
The win gave the Golden Hurricane sole possession of second place in the conference.
“I thought it was a great performance by our guys. I thought our guys played extremely well on both ends of the court. I thought we executed extremely well offensively. We didn’t turn the ball over. We played inside-out, which is important for us to have success,” said Tulsa coach Frank Haith.
“Defensively, I thought we were really terrific. We were dialed in. We gave up some 3s. Isiaha (Mike) made some 3s there in the first half where I thought we needed to get there a second quicker, but for the most part we did a good job of protecting the paint and limiting these guys to one shot.”
Igbanu keeps building a resume to be American Athletic Conference’s post-season 6th Man of the Year award as he converted 9-of-13 field goals and 5-of-5 free throws en route to his fifth 20+ scoring game in the last 8 contests.
He just missed his third double-double of the season by pulling down a game-high 9 rebounds.
Tulsa hosts Central Florida Saturday and plays at Temple Wednesday.