Tulane Holds Off Portland State, 63-61
Tulane men's basketball (9-4) closed out its non-conference slate with a 63-61 victory over Portland State (6-5) Saturday night at Fogelman Arena. Asher Woods stepped to the charity stripe with ice in his veins to secure the win for the Green Wave by sinking a pair of free throws with seconds remaining.
With the win, the Wave improved to 2-0 all-time against Portland State with both victories coming in Uptown. The victory also gave Tulane to its first non-conference slate with at least nine wins since the 2014-15 season when the Green Wave went 9-1.
Tulane Top Scorers
The trio of Woods, Rowan Brumbaugh, and Tyler Ringgold led the offensive attack for Tulane against the Vikings. Woods paced the team with 21 on 6-of-9 shooting and a perfect 9-of-9 from the free throw line. The senior guard has reached double figures in seven games this season including a pair of performance with 20-plus points.
Brumbaugh followed with 14 points to notch his sixth consecutive game with double digits and his 12th this season. He was also perfect from the charity stripe shooting 7-of-7 at the line while also adding five boards and a team-high three steals.
Rounding out the top performers for the Wave was Ringgold with 10 points including eight in the second half. The redshirt sophomore has tallied double figures in scoring six times this season and 10 times in his career.
Wave Fall Behind Early
After the Green Wave opened with the first five points of the night the pace of scoring slowed for both teams in the opening frame. Tulane and Portland State exchanged methodical scoring runs throughout the first half. The Wave faced its largest deficit of the contest at 20-13 with 4:10 on the clock after an 8-1 run by the Vikings.
Tulane mounted its best run of the opening frame scoring nine-straight to reclaim the lead 22-20 with just over a minute to play in the first half. Portland State briefly tied the score again at 22-22, but it was the Wave that hit the locker room holding a 24-22 advantage.
Half Two Begins with a TU Run
The Green Wave quickly extended its lead to begin the second half with a 7-0 run capped off by the team's first three-pointer of the night from Ringgold. Tulane eventually pushed its advantage to as many as 12 points with under six minutes remaining, but the Vikings did not go down without a fight.
Portland State slowly chipped away at the Wave's lead to ultimately tie the game at 61-61 on a second-chance layup with seven seconds left. After a Tulane timeout, Woods attacked the lane in the closing moments to draw a foul and earn a trip to the free throw line with two seconds on the clock. He confidently stepped to the line to drain both shots and secure the victory for the Green Wave 63-61.
Next, the Green Wave start American Conference play on the road at East Carolina on Wednesday, December 31. The game between Tulane and the Pirate is slated to tipoff at 11 a.m. on ESPNU.
Courtesy Tulane Athletics
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.