The University of Akron dug itself a deep hole early against Oral Roberts and could not climb out in a 67-61 loss Saturday at the Mabee Center in Tulsa, Okla.
The loss in the annual BracketBusters event snapped UA’s eight-game winning streak.
“We had good effort,” UA coach Keith Dambrot said. “I thought we were a bit discombobulated. We didn’t make any shots when it mattered, but overall the effort was good.”
Point guard Alex Abreu led the Zips (19-8) with 13 points, followed by Nikola Cvetinovic with 11.
The Eagles’ Dominique Morrison delivered a double-double with a game-high 16 points and 10 rebounds in a game he and his team dominated in multiple ways.
The most significant came from their ability to defend Zips center Zeke Marshall, who found himself straddled with foul trouble at 18:23 of the second half.
That wasn’t the only problem. Even when Marshall was in the game, the Eagles limited his effectiveness on both ends of the court.
Marshall finished with just four points and one rebound.
The Zips work best on offense when they are able to move the ball inside to Marshall and back out to someone on the perimeter. They had little luck as the Eagles (25-5) took the inside away, forcing the Zips into ill-advised shots.
The Zips shot 42 percent for the game, but they connected on just 5-of-22 from behind the 3-point arc for a meager 27 percent.
“The last eight minutes they did [take the inside away] because they went zone,” Dambrot said of the lack of an inside game.
It doesn’t help that the Zips were also crushed on the boards, getting outrebounded 37-24, including a 13-6 deficit in offensive rebounds.
“We struggled to rebound in the first half, but in the second half we were better,” Dambrot said. “You just have to do better than that if you’re going to win on the road against a team that’s won 22 in a row at home.”
The Eagles built a 15-point lead with 4:43 left in the first half before the Zips began closing the gap. After the Zips cut the deficit to 28-22, the Eagles scored the last five points of the half to take a 33-22 lead.
UA battled back from that halftime deficit through tenacious defense, cutting the Oral Roberts lead to one point on several occasions, but never taking the lead.
The Zips have four Mid-American Conference games remaining on their schedule.
Despite the loss, Dambrot said he’s not worried about the Zips’ momentum being slowed.
“I’m an optimist. I never try to err on the side of negativity,” he said.
