Junior Hurricanes (Tulsa University style)

Tulsa Celtics

Brock Morton, Matt Reynolds, Trevor Rehm and Tracey Moore Jr. are a few players who will be playing under the Jr. Hurricane moniker in the coming months. The boys will work hard and get some excellent coaching from the likes of former TU players Jason Parker, Kevin "KJ" Johnson, Cordell Love, Wade Jenkins and Tracey Moore. Herb Suggs heads the Jr. Hurricane program and Bama Pie is a corporate sponsor.

Tracey Moore is head coach of this 14 and under team.

The weekend of June 10, 2005, the team will head for the Wichita, Kansas area to play in a huge MAYB tournament. There are 72 teams in the 8th grade division. They will play at a variety of venues including Newton, Kansas.

Celtics 61 - Oklahoma Pirates 26

We closed out the tournament in fine fashion with incredible 3 point shooting by Brock Morton, Kale Larkin, Matt Maguire & Alan Santos. Brian Benson, Corey Shannon and Chris Collins rounded out an overall unselfish game for the Celtics. Crisp passing led to numerous wide open threes and the CELTICS converted.

Corey, Matt and Alan switched off covering ultra quick Howard as we utilized a box and one for most of the game.

The TOURNAMENT CHAMPION was TeamTulsa, who we fell to by 2 points in overtime in the opening round of the tourney. They beat Missouri Valley by thirty points in the Championship game.

Gas Over $2 per gallon.....CELTICS RUNOUT during 2nd Half against ARKANSAS

Tulsa Celtics

After an incredible run which opened up an 18-8 lead, the CELTICS could not stave off Team Arkansas. Our six players ran out of gas during 2nd half play but never quit fighting against the 12 players from HogLand.

I was walking around Team Arkansas before the game and realized they had five players my height and taller. They were big 8th graders. I believed our only chance was to put lots of pressure on them and not get into a halfcourt game.

We hit them with our full court zone press and it created numerous turnovers. Kale Larkin nailed three straight 3 pointers off set plays and Arkansas didn't know what hit them. They had 6 players over 6 ft 3" and we were able to neutralize them for most of the first half.

We played with 6 players against their 11 men and they substituted frequently and always had fresh bodies in the game. Arkansas tied the game at 21-21 just before halftime.

Our press was not as effective during the 2nd half, partly because we were a little worn down and also their #12 was beating our first trap with a crossover dribble that continually split our two trappers. Both halves Arkansas finished well on fast breaks either taking the ball to the hole or dishing off for easy layups.

Chris Collins played a solid game inside against the much taller and more physical team. We could have used Jarred's size and strength in both of our April Fools tournament games.

We close out the tourney with a game tomorrow night against the PIRATES.

Team Tulsa EEEKS out Two Point Overtime Win over Celtics

Tulsa Celtics
The seven Celtics battled the much larger Team Tulsa for forty one minutes before falling 48-46 on a put back basket with 4 1/2 seconds left in the overtime. Brian Bensons 3/4 of the court last second shot fell just short.

Turnovers and allowing too many offensive rebounds were the key factors in the loss. We probably had 15 turnovers and they probably had 20-24 points on stickbacks after crashing the offensive boards.

Brian Benson had 5 three pointers and Brock Morton added 3 more to help the CELTICS battle back from several 8 point deficits. We actually had the lead in the last two minutes but failed to control the ball at crucial times. Chris Collins played his first game as a Celtic and filled the large void as Jarred Wise is busy this weekend playing in a baseball tournament.

We pressed quite a bit in the first half and had modest success but relied on a 2-1-2 zone exclusively in the 2nd half; focusing on blocking out and trying to limit TeamTulsa's offensive rebounding.

Corey Shannon played large as he was forced to battle inside throughout the game; Matt Maguire, Kale Larkin & Alan Santos all had highlight moments as all seven Celtics truly battled hard on the defensive end. If we had not, we would have lost by 20 or more points.

Yours truly, in hindsight, should have used another timeout with a minute left and the game tied at 44 to set up a last possession play. Instead, we turned the ball over and they scored. Brian Benson up faked and took it to the hole with about 8 seconds left to tie the game. We withstood three shots in the last 8 seconds to send the game into overtime.

Future Oklahoma High School Hall of Fame Coach Nate Harris watched the game. Also present was Waymon Tisdale's brother William who spoke to me after the game. He was quite impressed with how we were able to play TeamTulsa even. He said they never did figure out all of our picking, which typically occurred from our Oklahoma and Celtic plays, along with our motion offense.

The CELTICS have nothing to be ashamed of, but personally, I sure hate losing. We play tomorrow afternoon at 4:10 pm at the ORU aerobic center.

April Fools Hardwood Tourney

Tulsa Celtics
Celtics Brock, Corey, Sean, Brian & Marvin do a little "off court" teaming up...

We got paired up with a tough first round foe in the April Fools tournament which begins tonight at East Central High School. TeamTulsa, who knocked off the tough JAMMERS at the STATE AAU tourney last weekend, will be our opponent.

Last night, I learned that our one BIG MAN, Jarred Wise will be unavailable because of a baseball tournament. With Sean McIlroy also leaving town to play in a baseball tournament we will be extremely small (but QUICK!) tonight.

Brian Benson has worked us into his busy social schedule and will participate tonight and Sunday. We also picked up Chris from the Eagles. Kale, Matt M., Brock, Corey and Alan will have to play BIG for us to have success in the tourney.

It will be fun,,,and I plan on taking advantage of the large court at EC since we will be at the smaller confines of the ORU aerobic center for the rest of the tournament.

GO CELTICS!

Eagles fall to Jammers at STATE AAU

Tulsa Celtics
After grabbing a short lived 2nd half lead, the Eagles couldn't hold off the Jammers in first round of the State AAU tournament in Norman. The Eagles fell 64-57.

Sixteen first half turnovers was too much for the Eagles to overcome. The Eagles will face either Oklahoma United or the ENID BLUE DEVILS this afternoon in hopes of staying alive in the double elimination tournament.

Celtics Morton, Wise, Santos and Pinkerton performed well for the Eagles, and Larkin's PT was limited and didn't get much of an opportunity to help the Eagles. Maybe today will be different.

"See-Gulls" = Celtics and Eagles

Today the Eagles travel to Norman for the STATE AAU Basketball tournament; THeir coaches invited Brock, Jarred and Kale (Celtics) to play with them in the tourney. The Eagles also have Alan and Price who have played with the Celtics. The Celtics team actually has three ninth graders on the core roster, from Jenks (Brian), Broken Arrow (Corey) and Union (Marvin), and we have never played in an AAU tournament. They asked me to assist Coach Keith Lucas and Andrew Santos as we blended the players together.

Our first game is against the Jammers at 2:30 pm......should be interesting!

Jim Cox is wanting the Celtics to enter next weekends tournament and said he will work around the AAU tourney if necessary.

It sure will be funnnnnn.

Oh, by the way,,, Tulsa now has an NBDL team, the Tulsa Hoopsterz. (NBDL stands for National Basketball Developmental League~~ the farm system to the NBA.) hmmmmm...

One more thing,,,,SEE GULLZ???? That is what Jarred calls the hybrid team formed with Celtics and Eagles. Cee-gles