Tulane Drops Below .500 in Conference, Falling at Charlotte, 73-70
In this story:
Though the Tulane men were able to keep things close most of the game, the Green Wave continued to let their opponents thrive on the boards, as the Wave fell to Charlotte, 73 - 70 Friday night in North Carolina. With the loss, their 4th in a row, TU falls to 12-8 on the year and drops below the even-Stephen mark in American Conference games to 3-4. The 49ers improve to 11-9 for the season, 5-2 in the AAC.
First Half: Charlotte 23 - Tulane 22
It was an ugly first half for both teams. In the first twenty minutes, the Green Wave could only manage twenty-two shots at the basket. Of those 22, nine of those were from 3-point range. Tulane hit only one of those attempts for 11% from beyond the arc. Charlotte wasn't much better, putting up 26-shots on goal, and jacking up a dozen three-pointers, making a trio of them.
Neither team could get the advantage in this one early. Tulane opened its widest lead at four with just over 13:00 minutes on the clock. The home team opened a 5-point lead by the 7-minute mark. The Green Wave was able to cut it to one by the half. The game was tied five times in the first period.
Another half, another owning of the boards by a Tulane opponent. The Green Wave could only manage 11-rebounds in the first half, none of them offensively. Charlotte swiped 21-boards, a third of them on the offensive end.
Tulane guard Rowan Brumbaugh led the way in the first twenty minutes with 10-points, the only Greenie in double-digits. He was also tied with center Percy Daniels with the rebounding lead for TU, both of them getting three.
Final Score: Charlotte 73 - Tulane 70
Charlotte went on a 9-0 run early in the 2nd half. By the midway point of the second stanza, the 49ers had opened their largest lead thus far of 14. Though Tulane matched the 49ers shot-for-shot after that, they couldn't get over that double-digit hump until less than a minute left in the game. While the Green Wave hit 6-of-their-last-8 shots from the floor, Charlotte hit 12-of-their-last-13 shots to finish the game. Brumbaugh hit a jumper with 4-seconds remaining for the final difference.
Tulane's Brumbaugh led all scorers with 33, going 10-of-14 from the field, and hitting all but one of his 13-free throws. Only senior Asher Woods would see two digits of scoring for the Green Wave, getting ten for the game.
Charlotte dominated the boards with a 36-19 advantage over Tulane. Of those nineteen rebounds for TU, only two of them came on the offensive end for the Wave. Brumbaugh claimed over a quarter of the total rees for Tulane, garnering five, leading all Green Wave teammates.
Tulane flies home tonight to try to avoid the winter weather expected to hit North Carolina this weekend. Next up, a single home game on Wednesday night at 8:00 CST against South Florida. Then it's back on the road for a single afternoon game in Memphis on the first day of February.
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.