Jeriah Horne led Tulsa with 16 points, but Wichita State went on a late 17-4 run to pull away for a 79-68 victory over the Golden Hurricane on Saturday afternoon at Charles Koch Arena.
Horne went 6-of-10 from the field and pulled down a team-high six rebounds for the Golden Hurricane (13-10, 3-7), while Curran Scott added 11 points. Darien Jackson and DaQuan Jeffries each contributed 10 points and Tulsa shot 53.2-percent, but turned it over 18 times.
Markis McDuffie had a game-high 27 points on 11-of-20 shooting for the Shockers (10-11, 3-6), who were held to 44.6-percent shooting and scored 24 points off turnovers. Jaime Echenique scored 16 points and Dexter Dennis came off the bench to chip in with 11 points.
Martins Igbanu’s three-point play with 7:09 left gave Tulsa a 64-62 advantage. However, the Shockers would outscore the Hurricane 17-4 the rest of the way en route to the 79-68 victory.
Tulsa erased a four-point halftime deficit by hitting seven of its first eight shots, including three buckets from Jackson during 9-0 Hurricane run that reclaimed a 60-52 advantage with 10:55 to play.
But the Shockers countered with a 9-0 spurt of their own and held a 62-60 lead before a free throw by Taplin and Igbanu’s three-point play that set the stage for the rest of the contest.
Both teams started out hot from the field and Tulsa held the lead through the first 10 minutes thanks, in part, to a strong showing from the 3-point line early. Jeffries got the Hurricane started with a trey before Scott hit two of his three first-half triples as the visitors led by as much as 16-11.
McDuffie got hot for the Shockers on his way to 13 points in the opening half and the home squad took the lead with an 8-0 run to make it 31-25. Tulsa closed that gap to just a basket before another 6-0 stretch by Wichita State pushed the deficit to 42-34.
However, Tulsa held the Shockers without a field goal for the final 2:45 and closed the deficit to 44-40 at halftime.
Tulsa will be back in action at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 9 when it will host Temple at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.