None

It was far from a pretty scene inside the Mabee Center for the 52nd edition of the Mayor’s Cup on Monday night. Of course, that’s if you were Oral Roberts.

For Tulsa, it was a dubious beginning followed by a joyful second half.

The Golden Hurricane snapped its three-game losing streak against ORU and posted a 79-65 triumph in front of a split crowd of 4,230.

The Golden Eagles led TU 53-50 with a little more than 12 minutes remaining, but the Golden Hurricane went on a 16-0 from there and never looked back.

Now on to the grades…

Opening burst: A

Kris Martin came out firing knocked down a couple of quick 3s to start the game. The game was back and forth and offered up plenty of entertainment through the first media timeout.

Crowd: C

Of the 4,230 people in attendance, the crowd was pretty evenly split between TU and ORU fans. The student section offered up plenty of energy, which is always nice to see early in the season. The problem beyond that is not many people are showing up to ORU games anymore.

Shooting: D

It’s time to face facts: This ORU team does not appear to be a very good shooting team. A 24-of-65 effort from the field dropped the Golden Eagles to a less-than-stellar 40.1 percent shooting for the year. That ranks 309th nationally out of 347 teams. That’s putrid.

“Just one of those nights when the ball wouldn’t fall,” ORU coach Scott Sutton said. “…Didn’t shoot it well, and give Tulsa credit because they made us pay.”

The leading example of ORU’s struggles to shoot the ball came from Jalen Bradley, a senior guard who went 2 of 12 from the field and 1 of 7 from beyond the 3-point arc.

“He’s one of the best shooters I’ve coached,” Sutton said of Bradley, who is now shooting 31 percent from the field and 16 percent from deep this season. “…He’s typically not going to have that type of game.”

Bench production: F

Jontray Harris and Chris Miller were the only two bench players who played significant minutes — with Dezmond McDaniel playing one minute with a hurt shoulder — and they combined for one point in 30 minutes of combined action. And look, you can’t ask just two guys to provide assistance off the bench, because it normally requires several somebodies. But, being true freshmen aside, Miller and Harris have to give better minutes. The Golden Eagles will win very few — if any — games when the bench is outscored 35-1.

This could also fall into the category of health and depth, which ORU is severely lacking in both right now. Aaron Anderson was out with a knee injury, and he’s expected to be out through what I would say would be the end of December. Darian Harris missed the game with the flu. Javan White continues to be banged up. McDaniel is limited by a shoulder ailment.

“We have to get healthy, and we need to get Aaron Anderson back,” Sutton said. “He’s kind of the heart and soul of this team. He’s the toughest player and our best defender…we’re a different basketball team with him on the floor.”

Rebounding: D-

Emmanuel Nzekwesi and Albert Owens combined for 20 rebounds. That’s all well and good, and expect that to happen quite a bit this year. Problem was the rest of the team combined for nine rebounds, and the Golden Eagles got out-rebounded 50-29. Woof.

Coaching optimism: B

Massive props to the Oracle’s Jadyn Watson-Fisher for closing out the postgame press conference with this:

“You said at media day this team would be a lot better than what people were expecting, but at 1-5 people are going to start having questions. What would you say to that?”

Sutton’s response: “It’s a long season … I still believe in this team. We have to get healthy; we haven’t been healthy. Friday and Saturday we had eight guys to practice. It’s a long season, and we have three months to get better before our conference tournament. He have to realize that, and we have to understand that. We have to stay together, and I still believe this team will be better than people think.”

He also referenced how last season the Golden Eagles started 8-2 before “hitting the skids.”

The problem is the skids never stopped and continued right into this season. But the good news is no one inside the ORU locker room is panicking yet.

On to Oakland (Michigan, that is)…