In the beginning of the basketball season, I wrote about how I thought the best college basketball team in the city was not the men’s team at Oral Roberts University, nor the University of Tulsa men, but rather their women’s teams, and most especially the ORU women’s team.

I wasn’t wrong.

The Tulsa men’s basketball team finished with a slightly better record than I thought they would, as the Golden Hurricane went 12-19 overall and 6-12 in the American Athletic Conference.

The team is led by third-year head coach Eric Konkol. However, the turnaround we saw in the 2023-2024 season, didn’t carry over to this past season. Tulsa won 11 more games last year (16-15) than the year before (5-25), but this season they had fewer victories with only 12. Most people expected more from this team this season.

Tulsa is the No. 10 seed in the AAC Basketball Tournament and will face the No. 7 seed Temple this evening at 6:00 p.m. in Dickies Arena, in Fort Worth, Tex.

Angie Nelp just finished her fourth season as the head coach of Tulsa’s women’s team. The TU women finished the season with a 17-14 overall record and were 11-7 in AAC games. The Golden Hurricane has consistently won 17 games under Nelp, except for last year, when their record was 25-10. That set the bar and expectations higher a year ago.

In her first season at TU, the Golden Hurricane finished the year at 17-11, then in 2022-2023 they were 17-13, and now this year at 17-14. Was the 25-win season an anomaly? We’ll have to wait and see.

The TU women were the No. 5 seed in the AAC Tournament and were upset by the No. 12 seed Charlotte, 71-66, on Sunday. Charlotte had advanced to the second round by beating Florida Atlantic on Saturday, 55-51.

The ORU men had, well, a very disappointing season. The kind of season that got their second-year head coach Russell Springmann fired.

In Paul Mills last season as head coach at ORU, the Golden Eagles were 30-5 overall and 18-0 in the Summit League. ORU waltzed through the Summit League Championship Tournament that year with three wins and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The No. 12 seed Golden Eagles then fell to No. 5 seed Duke, 74-51, in the first round.

In Springmann’s first season, ORU had a record of 12-9 overall and 5-11 in the Summit League. This past season, that dropped off to 7-23, 3-13 SL. Although the team only had five conference wins last year, they show signs of improvement. However, this season, those signs disappeared.

ORU was in the bottom spot of the conference going into the conference tournament, and as the ninth seed, they had to play the No. 8 seed Kansas City in what is called the first-round game. ORU lost to the Roos, 73-56. Two days later, ORU announced that Springmann would be replaced.

Now, as I predicted earlier, the ORU women’s team has had a fantastic season, and it may not be over yet. The Golden Eagles finished their third season under head coach Kelsi Musick with a 24-8 record overall and 12-4 in the Summit League.

They were the No. 2 seed in the tournament and after winning their quarterfinal game, 70-50, over No. 7 seed South Dakota, the Golden Eagles then beat the No. 6 seed Kansas City in the semifinals, 95-73.

The ORU women faced Summit League powerhouse South Dakota State in the championship game on Sunday. SDSU came into the game with not only the league’s best record but one of the best in the country, 28-3 overall, 16-0 SL. The Jackrabbits defeated ORU, 84-68 and will have the Summit League’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

ORU in the meantime, waits to see if they will get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament or if they’ll be invited to play in the Women’s NIT. Last year, ORU battled Grambling in the first round of the WNIT at the Mabee Center and lost an exciting, high scoring game, 93-91.

Tournament draws and brackets will be announced on Sunday.

TULSA BEACON RADIO

Tune in to “Tulsa Beacon Weekend” radio show every week, featuring interviews with local and national level guests, talking about everything from politics to family issues. My guest this week will be Joya Fadeley from Mend Medical Services. The show airs on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. CST on 970am KCFO.