Liberty (6-4) was unable to hang onto the halftime lead, falling at Oral Roberts (8-3), 84-70, on Monday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Oral Roberts is a good team,” Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay said following the game. “I’m really impressed with them on film. I knew this would be tough. We had some stretches where we played more characteristic of how we’ve been playing and who we are, but had a bad stretch in the second half.”

The Flames were able to take a lead into the locker rooms at halftime in what was a high scoring affair. That early lead would flip quickly in the second half as the home-standing Golden Eagles went on a 19-4 run in the opening minutes of the second half to seize control. Oral Roberts would push the lead into double digits in the closing minutes to secure the victory.

Liberty returns to action on Saturday in Springfield, Massachusetts for a neutral site game against Bryant. The Bulldogs are currently 8-3 on the season and own a win over Syracuse already this year.

ORU TURNS IT ON IN 2ND HALF

It was a tale of two halves. Liberty led for much of the opening 20 minutes and shot 62.5% from the field as the Flames went into the locker room with a four point lead. In the second half, Oral Roberts blitzed Liberty early, going on a 19-4 run to take control. The Golden Eagles would outscore Liberty 46-28 in the second half while the Flames were hold to 39.1% shooting from the floor after intermission.

“I think we rushed a little bit in the second half,” said McKay. “We wanted to react to their made basket without staying true to who we are. It’s a learning process. I do like our team. We’re going to be really good. We didn’t put together 40 minutes of consistent Liberty basketball tonight.”

TURNOVERS TOO MUCH TO OVERCOME

Early in the season, the Flames struggled with turnovers in the team’s losses. It seemed to correct itself some over the past several weeks, but once again the turnovers came back to haunt Liberty on Monday night in Oklahoma.

Liberty finished the game with 20 turnovers while Oral Roberts outscored the Flames, 23-7, in points off turnovers. This led to 15 more shot attempts for the home team. Liberty’s 51.1% shooting from the field and 13 of 27 mark from three was not good enough to overcome the fewer opportunities. Darius McGhee had a great night scoring the ball once again, finishing with 24 points on 8 of 15 shooting but he did account for 7 of those turnovers.

“We work on it every day,” McKay stated of the team’s turnovers. “Our turnovers have declined substantially since Cancun, yet again I think the way people are going to guard us, if you don’t get penalized for guarding Darius with great physicality and with two hands on him, why not keep doing it. We don’t do it that way, we’ve never done it that way, I’m not suggesting that’s what they do. I think it makes it really hard on him. It’s not a whole lot you can do other than try to take care of the ball and be better.”

GAME PROVIDES GOOD EXPERIENCE FOR THE FLAMES

It’s no fun to lose and it’s disappointing for Liberty to not pick up the win against ORU on Saturday. That can be true but also true is that this one game will not have a lasting impact on the team. Liberty will not get an at-large bid and preparing for conference play is the primary concern.

A game like this on the road against a veteran team with lofty aspirations will only help Liberty continue to grow and build for the stretch run in conference play in the coming weeks.

“Winning on the road is hard,” McKay said. “That’s a really experienced team out there. They’ve got NCAA Tournament success with 7 of their top 8, that’s the reality of it. We’ve got some guys that have played in it, but other than Darius, Kyle, and Shiloh, not significant minutes, maybe Blake a little bit. I’m not trying to make an excuse, but I do think our non-conference schedule, and it continues to be challenging with Bryant and Grambling coming up, that’s what we want to get prepared for a challenging ASUN coming up. I think most of our people are used to us winning a lot of games in non-conference. I think we’ve got a chance to finish strong still. We’re going to definitely build on this because there’s a lot of tape to teach from.”

POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE