Dec. 4, 2010
Box Score | Photo Gallery 
RUSTON, La. - Junior forward Olu Ashaolu scored a season-high 24 points as the Louisiana Tech men's basketball team defeated I-20 rival ULM 67-58 on Saturday at the Thomas Assembly Center.
A season-high 4,123 fans saw the Bulldogs improve to 7-2 on the season and win their 13th consecutive home game against non-conference opponents. With the loss, ULM fell to 2-7.
Ashaolu was 7-of-15 from the field and 9-of-10 from the free throw line. He also hit his second three-pointer of the season and added six rebounds.
As he did in the Bulldog's previous game against SMU, sophomore guard Brandon Gibson did the majority of his scoring in the first half with 14 points. He finished the game with 15 points, seven rebounds and two blocks. Gibson was 5-for-8 from the field and 3-for-5 from three-point range.
Louisiana Tech shot 47.8 percent (22-46) from the field and 53.8 percent (7-13) from three-point range. The Bulldogs held ULM to 35.8 percent (25-67) from the field and just 17.8 percent (5-28) from three-point range.
"We wanted to get off to a great start and we did," head coach Kerry Rupp said. "But those guys (ULM) had no quit in them. I really admired how hard they played. That (Tommie) Sykes kid is a warrior and he did a lot of good things for them."
"I'm really proud of our guys. That's a game that was hard fought and we knew we would have to play for 40 minutes."
Five different Bulldogs hit a three-pointer including its tallest player as Souza drained a three to give the Bulldogs a 30-15 lead midway through the fist half. A dunk by Antwond Roshell at the 7:35 mark was the last made field goal by Tech for the rest of the half. However, the Bulldogs still shot 54.5 percent from the field and held ULM to 34.4 percent in the first half to take a 37-25 halftime lead.
At the 16:35 mark of the second half, Ashaolu slammed home an alley-oop from DeAndre Brown to give Tech a 45-32 lead. However, ULM went on a 10-4 run to cut the Tech lead to 49-42 with 10:46 remaining. A three-pointer from Brown gave Tech a 10-point lead, 58-48 with 6:50 remaining. The Warhawks scored five points in the final minute as the Bulldogs won by nine.
"The fans were great tonight. It was the perfect game to get about 4,000 people in here tonight. It was great support from our students and fans."
ULM outrebounded Tech 38-37, the first time this season that the Bulldogs were outrebounded and won the game.
Senior guard DeAndre Brown, Tech's leading scorer on the season, scored just six points, but recorded a career-high seven rebounds. He also added three assists and two steals.
Fred Brown and Hugh Mingo led the Warhawks in scoring with 18 points each. Mingo also had a team-high nine rebounds and Brown added a team-high seven assists.
With the win, Rupp improved to 13-3 against teams from the state of Louisiana. He will attempt to improve that record even more as the Bulldogs next play at Northwestern State on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
