Nic Moore didn’t score until nearly 28 minutes had passed in Thursday’s win at Memphis. On Sunday vs. Tulane, the senior needed 24 minutes to record his first point.
But SMU’s other Moore, forward Ben Moore, provided 10 first-half points on his way to a 16-point, 12-rebound day. His game-high point and rebound totals led SMU (24-4, 12-4 American) to a 74-53 win over Tulane (10-19, 3-13 AAC). Moore also added a team-high two blocks and three steals. He scored eight of SMU’s first 19 points, helping SMU keep the score close despite its point guard’s scoreless half.
“He does a little bit of everything,” SMU guard Shake Milton said. “He’s so versatile, he creates so much for us, and I think that really gets us going.”
Like the first meeting between the two teams on Jan. 17, SMU struggled in the first half, committing 12 turnovers and making 11 of 29 field goal attempts (37.9 percent). SMU used a 9-0 run to take an eight-point lead with 3:46 left in the half, but Tulane responded with an 8-0 run of its own to take a 29-28 halftime lead.
“We put up the number of turnovers and our shooting percentage in the first half and just said we needed to execute,” SMU guard Jarrey Foster said. “Our defense was great in the first half, so we kept that up, and just executed on offense.”
The Mustangs pulled away in the second half, using an 18-2 run that spanned nearly seven minutes to take a 66-46 lead with 4:39 to go. They shot 64 percent in the second half and held Tulane to 24 points. Sterling Brown added 15 points while playing with the flu, 10 of which came in the second stanza. SMU shot 50 percent overall.
Malik Morgan led the Green Wave with 15 points and Louis Dabney added 12, but SMU held Tulane forward Dylan Osetkowski to seven points on 2-of-9 shooting. He entered the game with a team-leading 46.7 field goal percentage.
“He’s very skilled, but our strength all year has been Markus [Kennedy], Jordan [Tolbert] and Ben [Moore],” SMU head coach Larry Brown said. “Jordan and Ben defensively are as good as it gets, and Markus is getting better.”
Sunday’s game looked like a trap game: A home game vs. 10-win opponent sandwiched between a tough 69-62 road win at Memphis and the two final regular-season games against NCAA tournament hopefuls Connecticut and Cincinnati. After the sluggish first half, SMU wasn’t going to let its seniors down with just three games left in their careers.
“We just wanted to rally around all the seniors, but especially Nic because he’s been through so much and puts so much on his plate throughout the season,” Foster said. “But a game like this when he had just [five] points, we just picked him up and rallied behind him when he was falling down.”
SMU’s Thursday night game vs. Connecticut will be Nic Moore, Markus Kennedy and Jordan Tolbert’s last at Moody Coliseum. Moore and Kennedy have helped SMU go 49-4 at Moody since the start of the 2013-14 season. The 24 wins are tied for the most in program history in a single regular season while the three straight 20-win seasons are a program record.
“I just hope everybody comes and realizes what a treat it has been to have him, Markus and Jordan be doing something pretty special,” Brown said.
