Tulane Men Fall to Charlotte in Round Two of the American Tourney, 74-60
In this story:
After an ugly first half of play by both 10th seeded Tulane and 5th seed Charlotte things improved slightly for one and drastically for the other in half number two on the field goal side of things, as the 49ers pulled away the Green Wave 74 - 60.
First Half: Tulane 20 - Charlotte 18
The first twenty minutes might have been one of the ugliest halves of basketball Tulane has played this year. The same could probably be said for Charlotte. The 38-combined points was the lowest total in the history of the American Conference tournament.
The two teams combined 11-for-58 from the field, that's 19% from the field between the pair. The Green Wave was shooting blanks over the first five minutes of the game, the Wave's only points coming from a pair of Asher Woods free throws. Tulane ended the half going 6-of-24 in field goals, 2-of-15 from beyond the arc. The 49ers were 5-of-34 in field goals, 4-of-21 from three point land.
Though it might be said it was because of great defenses, an objective eye might beg to differ. Wide open shots were clanging off the iron, tip-ins were more like tip-outs, and a very physical contest with very few fouls being called (each team had five), helped pile up the badness.
At the 3:15 mark, Tulane star guard Rowan Brumbaugh landed awkwardly and left the game until there was a minute-and-a-half remaining in the half. The junior missed 7-minutes total of the first half and still led the team in scoring with nine, going 3-of-6 from the field, hitting one of his three tres, and perfect in his two free throws. Curtis Williams Jr had five.
Final Score: Charlotte 74 - Tulane 60
The Green Wave stayed mired in a shooting slump to start the final 20-minutes of play, going 2-of-7 in the first five minutes. Charlotte, meanwhile, went on a 10-0 run leading up the first media timeout to give the 49ers their first lead since the 15:36 mark of the first period. The Wave didn't do much better than that the rest of the way.
After shooting 25% from the field in the first half, Tulane warmed up slightly the 2nd twenty minutes, hitting a little over 30% of their shots. Charlotte, however, blew the doors off. The 49ers went from shooting 14.7% in half number one to a scorching 76% in the second.
Rowan Brumbaugh finished the night with 25-points. Asher Woods chimed in with 15.
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.