Tulsa Bounces Back, 83-66
Uzoh and Earls lead team

box score

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) -- Ben Uzoh scored 20 points and Rod Earls added 18, leading Tulsa past North Florida 83-66 Monday night in the consolation round of the O'Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic.

Glenn Andrews scored 14 points for Tulsa (1-1), which shot 59 percent and outrebounded the Ospreys 32-21. The Golden Hurricane opened the tournament by losing to Hampton on Sunday night.

Tom Hammond led North Florida (0-2) with 17 points and Justin Cecil had 13. It was the second straight lopsided defeat for the Ospreys, who dropped a 79-50 decision to host Maryland on Sunday night.

"We challenged our guys last night in some meetings and tonight they really responded well," said Wojcik.

Earls, who was held scoreless a night earlier and through the first 14:55 of tonight's contest, busted out at the 5:05 mark of the first half with his first points of the season on a three-pointer. He scored 11 straight points on three treys and a layup, erasing a 26-24 Tulsa deficit and giving the Hurricane a 35-30 lead with 2:52 left before intermission.

"I knew that I had to come out tonight and focus and play better for my team," said Earls. "Last night was a really frustrating night. I had a long night and stayed up for a long time. I stayed up thinking about what happened and that gave me motivation to come out and play harder than I did last night."

Baskets by Sam Mitchell and Glenn Andrews gave the Hurricane a 39-30 halftime lead. At the intermission, Tulsa was shooting 48-percent from the field and 46-percent from three-point range.

In the second half, Tulsa led 39-32 before Uzoh scored in the lane and added a three-point play to up the margin to 12. After North Florida closed to 53-44, Calvin Walls made two jumpers in an 11-3 spurt that gave the Golden Hurricane a 17-point cushion with 8:44 left.

The Hurricane saw its biggest lead of 20 points come at the 2:03 mark on a Brett McDade layup. From there, the Hurricane held on for the 17-point victory.

"Tonight, we were a totally different team than we were last night. Last night we didn't have any energy and Hampton took advantage of that. We just wanted to bounce back tonight and bring the intensity and we did that," said Uzoh.

The Hurricane changed the starting lineup from the opening game with the freshman Andrews and sophomore Bishop Wheatley making starts, joining Earls, Uzoh and Jerome Jordan.

"We changed the lineup for a couple reasons," said Wojcik. "We're just turning the ball over too much. We need to take care of the ball. If we get shots, we have guys that can make shots and when you take the ball out of your hands and don't get a shot it affects the scoring like it did last night, and secondly, Bishop has always been solid for us."

Wheatley, however, suffered a hand injury in the first half and missed the remainder of the game.