Green Wave Season-Opening Win Streak Stops at 3: UNO 85 - Tulane 63
The Tulane men's basketball team ran into a buzzsaw in the University of New Orleans Privateers. The Bucs seemed like they couldn't miss. The Green Wave did nothing but in their 85-63 loss to UNO.
Tulane coach Ron Hunter tried pulling every string imaginable: going with big men, smaller men, with his preseason American Conference player of the year Rowan Brumbaugh and without. It really did not matter. If you can't hit the side of a barn, you're not going to win.
The Green Wave cleared the half-century mark in shots from the field. They didn't hit but 34.6% of the 52 they put up. Tulane only stayed close because of hitting 74% of their free throws, going 24-of-34 from the charity stripe.
"That was a butt-whuppin," an exasperated Hunter said after the game. "I give them all the credit. I think we didn't play with the intensity that we've playing with all year."
The boards were owned by the Privateers with UNO grabbing 40 rebounds to the Wave's 23.
"That's a lot of rebounds," Hunter told us, turning back immediately to the Wave's poor shooting from the field. "I don't know I've had a team shoot that poorly in a game. I mean open shots, and these were important shots, because they could have cut the lead. It was one of those days."
Tulane guard Rowan Brumbaugh led the Wave with 18-points, hitting 9-of-10 from the free throw line, but, like his teammates, only 4-of-12 from three-point range. The only other Greenie to hit double digits was guard Curtis Williams, getting 10-points overall, but, again, only hitting 1-of-6 from beyond the arc.
"Whether we win or lose a game, we just want to get better," Hunter answered when we asked him what he tells his team after a game like this. "I said the same thing after the (Louisiana) Lafayette game (a victory for the Wave) that I'll say here: you learn from it; you get better. This time of the year, you can't put too much emphasis on a win or a loss. That's hard for me, because I want to come back and practice at 4 o'clock in the morning."
The Green Wave go on the road this weekend for the Shriners Children's Charleston Classic. They'll open with a game Friday at Noon against Utah State, then follow up with a Sunday evening game, Time and opponent are depending on whether the Wave and their opponent win or lose. It'll be either Boston College or Davidson with a tipoff time of 5:30 or 8:00. Both games will be on ESPN2.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.