Boxscore Louisiana Tech opened Western Athletic Conference play in winning fashion Thursday as the Bulldogs downed Tulsa 58-52 before a crowd of 5,838 at the Donald Reynolds Center.
The win was Tech's third straight and pushed the Bulldogs to 6-4 overall and 1-0 in the WAC while Tulsa fell to 2-7 and 0-1.
"That's a great win for us," Tech coach Keith Richard said. "Since we've been in the WAC this was the only court we had not won on. That's not headline news, but to us it meant a lot."
Tech led at intermission and built as much as a 14-point lead early in the second half, but Tulsa stormed back to take a one-point lead on a Brett McDade steal and layup with 4:23 remaining to give the Golden Hurricane a 47-46 advantage.
The Bulldogs struggled at the line early but came through late as
Daevon Haskins and
Wayne Powell combined to go 5-of-6 from the line in the final 38.9 seconds to secure the win for Tech.
"As bad as our free throws were in the first half, they won the game for us down the stretch," Richard said. "In the last four minutes I think our experience showed. We didn't panic after letting them back in it and we ran the plays we needed for the win."
Tech hit on 60.6 percent (20-33) of its free throw attempts thanks largely to Haskins and Powell. Haskins hit on 7-of-8 free throw attempts and scored nine points.
Paul Millsap poured in 19 points and added 11 rebounds to lead Tech with his 28th career double-double while Powell added his second double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 boards. Powell was good on 6-of-11 of his attempted free throws.
Millsap hit on only 8-of-22 shots from the floor but received a late surge thanks to his teammates that helped the Bulldogs get the win.
"Paul had struggled and was frustrated," Richard said. "His head was down a little when we called that timeout with about four minutes left. When they came off the floor, the other players did a great job of encouraging him and getting him back into the game. I did a little, but it was really the other players who took over and got Paul back into it during that timeout."
The Bulldogs managed a 29-23 halftime advantage despite shooting only .333 (9-27) from the floor in the first half. Tech was also cold at the free throw line in the opening stanza, making good on only 8-of-18 attempts (.444).
Steals played a big role in Tech's first-half lead as the Bulldogs swiped the ball six times from Tulsa while holding the Golden Hurricane without a steal in the first half. Tech ended up eight steals while Tulsa totaled two.
Both teams hit on 33.3 percent of their shots from the floor while Tech won the battle on the boards, outrebounding the Golden Hurricane 44-38.
Seneca Collins scored 10 points to lead Tulsa while Jarius Glenn added eight points for the Golden Hurricane.
The Bulldogs, who went 5-1 in the month of December, will stay on the road to face Rice at 2:05 p.m. Saturday in Houston.
