OBU Blows Out No. 5 Eagles

February 26, 2005

Oklahoma Baptist rounded out the conference season in fashion by knocking Oklahoma Christian 83-64 Saturday night in the Noble Complex. 

OBU hit the fifth-ranked Eagles with everything they had.

"I'm just happy were in the conference tournament," said Head Coach Doug Tolin. "We felt like we needed to run the ball and push at them in transition. We felt like we might have had an advantage there. The other thing we tried to do was attack the postmen. We felt like we had an advantage in the paint as well. Mainly we just wanted to keep attacking them."

OBU out-shot OC 50.8 percent to 36.7 percent, they out rebounded the Eagles 47 to 23 and the Bison had dished out 12 more assists than OC (23-11). OBU shot 40 percent from beyond the arc going six-of-15 and hit 11-of-13 from the charity stripe.

"It was hard for those guys (Oklahoma Christian) to play," said Tolin. "They

already won the conference Thursday night. We've been fortunate. We've done

that the last three years and we've had to play a game after we won the

conference and we played horrible."

The Bison got 45 points off the bench with 20 of those coming from Frank Benson who scored a game high. Benson was seven-of-11 from the field and six-of-seven from the free throw line.

"We tend to get some points from Frank every night off the bench," said Tolin. "We didn't get a lot from him Thursday night against Southern Nazarene, but he made up for it tonight."

Leonard Mosley scored 15 points and dished out seven assists. Robert Hart was the only other Bison in double figures as he scored 12 points while getting seven assists and grabbing six rebounds.

Not only did the Bison offense get things rolling, their defense locked down OC's three top players. Keith Harris, who scored 25 on the Bison at the Eagles Nest, was held to 12 points.

"There wasn't really a plan to stop any particular person tonight," said Tolin. "If you try to stop Harris (Charles) Baldwin scored 25 on us and if you try to stop Baldwin, Page scores 25 and if you try to stop their guards Merrill scores 45 so you just have to do the best job you can."

Brady Page and the reigning Sooner Athletic Conference Co-Player of the Year Jarred Merrill were held to 13 points each. The Bison have held Merrill to an average of 12.5 points a game over the two games between the Eagles and the Bison.

"I don't know that there's any trick to stopping Merrill," said Tolin. "We tried to work hard and make it hard on him to catch the basketball. We tried to make sure that we were there to help. We couldn't just guard him one on one, but you just have to be a little bit lucky. You have to get you hands on balls and knock them loose and catch him on an off shooting night."

With the win, OBU finishes out the regular season with a 9-9 conference record and 21-10 overall. The Bison will play John Brown in the first round of the conference tournament Thursday at 8 p.m. in the Noble Complex.