5 Things to Know about Oral Roberts
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Playing in its first Sweet 16 in 25 years, Arkansas will face Oral Roberts at 6:25 p.m. CT Saturday for a chance to advance to the Elite Eight.
The Golden Eagles are a member of the Summit League, which has produced only two other Sweet 16 teams in its history - Cleveland State in 1986 and Valparaiso in 1998.
Located in Tulsa, Oral Roberts is a small, private evangelical university with an enrollment of only 4,000 students. Here are five other things you should know about this year’s team…
1. Cinderella run
Oral Roberts is the talk of the tournament because no one expected it to still be playing on the second weekend. It became the ninth 15 seed to advance past the first round when it beat Ohio State and just the second to reach the Sweet 16 when it beat Florida.
Florida Gulf Coast was the first 15 seed to survive the first weekend, beating 2 seed Georgetown and 7 seed San Diego State in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. The “Dunk City” run ended with a 62-50 loss to 3 seed Florida.
The Golden Eagles’ Cinderella run actually started before the NCAA Tournament, though. They finished the regular season with a 13-10 overall record and finished fourth in the Summit League at 10-5. Just to make it to the Big Dance, Oral Roberts had to win three games in three days - including one against regular-season champion South Dakota State.
It shouldn’t be too surprising, though. Despite losing all five of its non-conference games against Division I opponents, Oral Roberts played Wichita State and Oklahoma State to within five points.
2. Nation’s top scoring duo
To get this far in the tournament, Oral Roberts has rode the backs of Max Abmas and Kevin Obanor. They combined for 59 points in the 75-72 win over Ohio State and 54 points in the 81-78 win over Florida. That means the duo has accounted for 72.4 percent of the Golden Eagles’ scoring in the Big Dance.
That isn’t a fluke. Those two guys have been prolific scorers all season, averaging a combined 43.5 points per game - making them the top scoring duo in the country.
Obanor is a 6-foot-8 forward who contributes 19.0 points by shooting 50.1 percent from the floor, 47.0 percent from beyond the arc (on 117 attempts) and 87.2 percent from the free throw line. He’s nearly averaging a double-double, as he also has 9.6 rebounds per game.
Abmas is a 6-foot-1 guard who actually leads the country in scoring at 24.5 points per game, edging out Iowa’s Luka Garza (24.1 ppg), Detroit Mercy’s Antoine Davis (24.0) and LSU’s Cameron Thomas (23.0). He shoots 47.9 percent from the floor, 43.1 percent from deep (on 225 attempts) and 89.8 percent from the free throw line.
If he maintains his lead and wins the scoring title, he’ll be the sixth NCAA scoring leader to play Arkansas, according to HogStats. The Razorbacks beat Oklahoma and Trae Young in 2017-18, Oakland and Reggie Hamilton in 2011-12, Centenary and Ronnie McCollum in 2000-01, and Loyola-Marymount and Hank Gathers in 1988-89, but lost to Cincinnati and Oscar Robertson in 1957-58.
3. Let it rain
No team in the country shoots the three quite like Oral Roberts. The Golden Eagles make 11.2 three-pointers per game, which leads all of Division I, while still shooting them at an efficient 38.5 percent rate, which ranks 12th nationally.
Abmas and Obanor are the biggest contributors to that statistic, but they aren’t the only players on the team that can hurt you from beyond the arc.
Kareem Thompson - a 6-foot-6 guard - is 36 of 90 (40.0 percent) from three-point range this season and DeShang Weaver - a 6-foot-8 forward - is 34 of 92 (37.0 percent) from deep. It was Weaver who knocked down the final go-ahead three-pointer for Oral Roberts in the Florida game.
It’s also worth noting that RJ Glasper, the Forrest City native who began his career at Arkansas as a walk-on, was shooting 35.2 percent on 3.9 attempts per game before suffering an injury that’s caused him to miss the last 10 games.
4. Money from the charity stripe
While they are really good from the three-point line, the Golden Eagles are historically good at the free throw line. They are currently shooting 82.2 percent from the charity stripe, which is tied with Harvard’s single-season Division I record set in 1983-84.
Technically, Oral Roberts enters its game against Arkansas with the record by one-hundredth of a percentage point, at 82.19 percent compared to Harvard’s 82.18 percent mark achieved 37 years ago.
Once again, Abmas and Obanor are the two guys you don’t want to see on the free throw line in a tight game if you’re the other team, as they are shooting 89.8 percent (on 147 attempts) and 87.2 percent (on 125 attempts), respectively.
Glasper was even better, going 39 of 42 (92.9 percent) from the stripe before his injury, while Thompson is 28 of 40 (70.0 percent) and Carlos Jurgens is 39 of 50 (78.0 percent). The only weak-link among Oral Roberts’ regular contributors is starting forward Francis Lacis. He is just 10 of 20.
5. Rematch in Indy
This won’t be the first time Arkansas has faced Oral Roberts this season. The two teams met at Bud Walton Arena way back on Dec. 20, with the Razorbacks winning 87-76 to improve to 7-0.
However, it wasn’t an easy game for Arkansas. It trailed by as many as 12 points late in the first half and went to halftime down 40-30. The Razorbacks chipped away at that lead in the second half and eventually took the lead with 12:49 remaining.
It wasn’t until the final eight minutes that Arkansas went up for good, though, and even then, it never fully ran away with it. The Razorbacks were led by a monster double-double from Justin Smith, who had 22 points and a career-high 17 rebounds, including 10 on the offensive boards. For the first time all season, he played the 5 for much of the second half, as Arkansas went with a small lineup to outscore the Golden Eagles 57-36 after halftime.
Obanor had a double-double for Oral Roberts, finishing with 21 points and 10 rebounds, but it was a quiet game for Abmas. He scored just 11 points on 4 of 11 shooting, including 1 of 6 from beyond the arc. The only time he scored less in a game this season was when he had 8 points in just 9 minutes in a blowout win over NAIA Southwestern Christian.