Everyone and his dog checked out Friedrichsen and Montonati last night, including ITS’s very own I.I. Also on Tulsa’s radar was freshman teammate of Montonati, Boden Williams. Tulsa has been recruiting Williams, although they have not offered yet. He is the son of former TU player Shawn Williams.​

Four-star Parker Friedrichsen leads the way in battle of top five teams​

ByERIC BOSSI 5 hours ago
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BIXBY, Okla. -- Friday night 247Sports made the trek to Bixby (Okla.) High. The reason, a matchup of two teams ranked in the top five of Oklahoma 6A East as No. 3 Bixby hosted Owasso (Okla.) High in a late season matchup. A battle between two highly ranked teams is always a good reason to get out to a game, but the matchup also featured Bixby's four-star senior guard Parker Friedrichsen who just got his release from Notre Dame while Owasso has highly regarded freshman Jalen Montonati.
The game was nip and tuck all the way. Each time Bixby would open up some breathing room, Owasso would come storming back. In the end, though, it was a big night from Friedrichsen while Montenati struggled that allowed Bixby to prevail 61-59.
Because of Mike Brey's retirement, Friedrichsen got his release from Notre Dame two weeks ago and the four-star who ranks No. 99 overall in 2023 is now the highest ranked shooting guard left on the board. Based on what he did on Friday night he could be in a position to move up a bit more when we finalize rankings.

Friedrichsen is still pretty lean, but he didn't show any lack of toughness and he's as skilled as they come in the senior class. One of the country's premier jump shooters, Friedrichsen made four of seven from beyond the three-point line. That's expected with him. What is even more important with his game is his ability to create off the dribble and the impressive arsenal of pull-up jumpers, floaters and clever finishes he's able to make at the rim. For the evening, he finished with 27 points, four rebounds and four assists.
Since opening up he's heard from programs like Creighton, Nebraska, Rice, Tulsa and Vanderbilt while others like Kansas and Villanova have been dipping their toes in the water. This weekend, he'll head to Wake Forest for an official visit and head coach Steve Forbes will be in Oklahoma to see him next Tuesday. After Friday night's game, Friedrichsen is just 12 points of 2,000 for his career. We'll have much more on him and his recruitment soon.

On the other side, Montonati has been in the middle of a big freshman year. We were able to see him during the fall at the Pangos All-South Camp and USA Basketball and the 6-foot-7 small forward impressed with his skill, mobility and shooting range. On Friday night, we could see the skill and footwork -- he's really crafty in the post thanks to that footwork -- but the shots just weren't falling for him. Montonati finished with just eight points on the night. However, he's just a freshman and there are going to be some up and down moments as a young player develops. Oklahoma State and Tulsa have both offered and assuming the shots go down like we've seen them before, he'll be a candidate for our first ranking of the class of 2026.
While Montonati is the headliner, he's not the only impressive freshman for Owasso. Combo guard Boden Williams scored 11 points and is certainly going to be one to watch. He's got a pretty stroke, makes good reads, is really competitive and has good bloodlines given that his father played at Tulsa and mother at Oklahoma State. We'll look forward to seeing more of him down the road.

Season Wrap-up

Obviously one of the most disappointing seasons in TU history but when one looks at the roster compared to the other AAC teams you see why we were picked near the bottom in the pre-season poll and finished at the bottom.

Konkol did not achieve the number of wins I expected especially after seeing the first half of the Oregon State game. I can’t believe his defense and offensive sets are that poor but the execution was the worst I have seen.

I truly expect that with early disappointments, there were two or three “cancers” on this team that prevented any sense of team chemistry. I’ve seen this in a variety of teams at different levels. With summer teams you can just get rid of them but it is difficult on a college team.

On the skill set side, this was the worst ball handling and passing team in TU history. There is no rim protector so teams score at will inside without worrying about getting their shots blocked. Also a lack of urgency on loose balls and 50-50 rebounds.

The Freshmen were very slow to develop. You expect more after this many minutes of play.

Only Selebangue stands out with all round play and he is a little short to compete against Memphis.

The recruits from November look really good but may not be instant producers. Thus the April signings will be the most important in years. Not only to regain the skill sets needed to compete in the AAC but the chemistry to maintain enthusiasm and aggressiveness to want to win.

I know Konkol has a long contract and he is doing this the right way but many fans are too impatient to wait and find out. He was hit with NIL and the portal and all coaches are having to take risks on players that they normally would not have to take. This is the trickiest part of the new recruiting process.

I didn’t mention many players by name as you expected but the roster change is going to be the biggest I have ever seen and not knowing the inside reasons for player change I will not speculate.

I will say I think it will take year 3 to get our heads completely above water. And that’s if we can keep our best players each year.

On a positive note I really appreciated loca’s efforts in keeping tabs on 100’s of teams and the continued intelligent breakdowns of each game on the message board by some really good basketball minds. Obviously we can only go upward from here and hopefully we can again enjoy the ride.

Saw that Jim Boeheim was hanging up his whistle after a long career at Syracuse. All of us old-timers can remember the thrill of the Golden Hurricane beating the Orange in the 1981 NIT final, and this was when the NIT was a "Big Deal" with 32 qualifying teams. TU won a lot of very close games on the way to the final, and then overcame an extremely biased Digger Phelps who was doing the game for television. How sweet it was, and TU was on it's way to 2 solid decades of great basketball.

I just want to thank the seniors for staying around for their college career and putting in the efforts. I want to also thank the rest of the team and the coaching staff for grinding it out. I know it was tough for everyone, but we got this season across the finish line. Now it is time to focus on next season. Let’s make it a better one.

GO TU!!!

The following is an in-depth recap of Tulsa's 2023 recruiting cycle, with a focus on in-state prospects, battles with Power Five schools and AAC foes, as well as what's left for TU as they could add more in the spring.

not starting off well

And have more turnovers. Being a 16 point underdog in the Aac tournament is probably the highest since joining the Aac.

Do you think Bryant Selenbangue is deserving of 2nd/3rd team. He was #1 in rebounding in league, like # 3 in fg% and 22 in scoring. On the absolutely trash board for AAC no one is even bringing him up but I think he should be deserving of the conversation.

And we think our men’s team is bad. Tennessee is ranked #23 in the nation. I like how they defend the breakaway.

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Thoughts ?

Has anyone heard any news about Anthony Pritchard? I know that the announcers for the Tulsa vs. Witchita State game said he was absent due to health reasons, but I am wondering if that's the real reason.

We are getting a royal screw job by the officiating crew in this game. Hard to play the the other team plus the officiating team.

Grant given to Tulsa church to study the removal of the IDL..

Removal of North Leg of IDL?

Gonna screw up alot of commutes..

So, not only are MLS games tucked away on Apple TV+ the next few years, you have to pay an additional $12.99 (for current Apple TV+ subscribers), or $15.99/month (non Apple TV+ subscribers) to watch the games. So...MLS and Apple TV are going to take a bath. The reason MLS on ESPN+ with just 2-3 games a week on over the air TV worked is because there is a ton of other interesting and good content on ESPN+. Soccer content alone on ESPN+ makes it well worth the $6.99/mo price tag. Add all the TU stuff plus NHL content (for me), plus all the NCAA content, ESPN+ is well worth it. Apple TV+ is like $5.99/mo...good enough for me to keep around for Ted Lasso and the few Apple TV+ produced movies like Coda (outstanding), Greyhound (really good), Finch (really good), and a few other shows, but to be honest, once Ted Lasso is done, I'm probably done with Apple TV. I already do Peacock for the EPL stuff but there are a ton of other shows and content on Peacock that makes it worth the $4.99/mo. Same with Paramount + and their Champions League content.

My guess is MLS is going to regret this deal pretty quickly.

I hope he puts on a show. Wish he was coming back though.

NFL Network will have more than 50 hours of live coverage of the this year's event, beginning March 2. Here's the day-by-day schedule:

• March 2 (3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET): DL, LB
• March 3 (3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET): DB, PK/ST
• March 4 (1 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET): QB, WR, TE
• March 5 (1 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET): OL, RB

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Ladies start the season 1-4 at some tournament. Only win against Texas Tech but then Tech blasted them the next morning. They lost 8-3 to Tech on Friday. (both teams had 8 hits...difference looks like Tech also walked 6 times). TU's pitcher seemed to be hit or miss in that game. She finished with 12 K's as well. TU didn't have as many walks and obviously couldn't get a key hit with runners on where Tech did. TU beat Tech 3-2 the next game. TU also lost 2 to UT-Arlington as well as another game to Tech 12-1 (another 8 walks in that game. )

I hope Rick Dickson is paying the same attention to softball as he did to some of our other Olympic sports. Now that there seems to be a commitment to investing in some of those non-revenue sports in terms of staffs and facilities, it's time to get softball back to being the class of the AAC. Strimple is obviously not the answer and DIckson could probably lure Bargfeldt back with the commitment of a facilities improvement.

ITS GAMEDAY!!!

Tulsa Men travel to Tampa to take on South Florida and the Women are at home taking on UCF. Both are the regular season finale for both teams. The women’s tournament starts March 6 while the men won’t have to play until the evening of March 9th.

Todays Games

Two AAC games today along with the Women’s game and then we have Rhode Island taking on Loyola Chicago and the Fighting Sister Jean’s. Side note, Sister Jean was on CBS Sunday Morning talking about her relationship with the team and her book.

AND ONE

As the AAC Tourney approaches this is how the bracket will look. If Tulsa stays in it they will always be in the late game. There continues to be movement in the seedings.

Thursday, March 9

Game 1: 9 Seed East Carolina vs 8 Seed South Florida 12:30 p.m. ESPNU
Game 2: 10 Seed SMU vs 7 Seed UCF 2:30 p.m. ESPNU
Game 3: 11 Seed Tulsa vs 6 Seed Wichita State 7:00 p.m. ESPNU

Friday, March 10

Game 4: Game 1 Winner vs 1 Seed Houston 1:00 p.m. ESPN2
Game 5: 5 seed Temple vs 4 Seed Cincinnati 3:00 p.m. ESPN2
Game 6: Game 2 Winner vs 2 Seed Memphis 7:00 p.m. ESPNU
Game 7: Game 3 Winner vs 3 Seed Tulane 9:00 p.m. ESPNUGO TU!!!

Today’s games

AAC games


Other Games of Interest (Expansion Teams, Possible Teams and TU Women)


Rankings


Rest of GOI Teams


Expansion teams


Quad Tracker

Bypassing college altogether.

The Washington Spirit announced the signing of 15-year-old midfielder Chloe Ricketts on Friday, making the Michigan native the youngest contracted player in National Women’s Soccer League history.
A high school sophomore, Ricketts signed a three-year contract with an option for 2026 after training with the Spirit in preseason. She is three days younger than Olivia Moultrie was when the midfielder signed with the Portland Thorns in June 2021.

Anyone else watch episode 1 of The Last of Us? Thoughts?

I loved it and plan to watch again prior to episode 2. I played through the original video game twice, and I've played the second game as well. The TV show brings even more of the story. I think it's incredibly well done and super compelling. I wish all episodes were released at once.

Does anyone know if there are any basketball recruiting updates?

Is this real?
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Looks like a couple of former TU players at South East Missouri State, Josh Early and Gayvin Elkamil, are going to the BIG DANCE.

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Last regular season game It will be interesting to see how the players and coaches approach it.