FORT WORTH, Texas – Tenth-seeded Tulsa spanned halftime with a 19-3 run and held on to beat Wichita State, 73-67, Thursday afternoon in the first round of the Air Force Reserve American Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Championship at Dickies Arena.
 
Ricky Council scored 16 of his team-high 19 points in the second half for WSU (15-13), which trimmed a 16-point second-half deficit to three on Council's putback with 3:50 to play but could get no closer.
 
The loss ended a string of 12-straight conference tournaments with at least one WSU victory.
 
Tyson Etienne added 14 points and five assists and become just the fourth Shocker with 200 career triples.
 
Filling in for injured point guard Craig Porter Jr., who suffered a hip injury earlier in the week, Qua Grant matched his season-high with 13 points
 
Dexter Dennis tacked on 10 points to bring his career total to 991 and shared the team lead with six rebounds.
 
Sam Griffin paced Tulsa (11-19) with 21 points, including a back-breaking three immediately after Council's basket that pushed the Hurricane lead back to 59-53.
 
Darien Jackson (20 points, nine rebounds) and Jeriah Horne (17 points, 10 rebounds) also had big nights for Tulsa, which shot 45.3 percent from the field and made 7-of-20 three-point attempts.
 
Looking to sweep three games from its rival for just the second time in series history, WSU shot just 36.7 percent.
 
Eight days after out-rebounding Tulsa, 43-19, in a 10-point road victory, the Shockers were beaten on the boards, 38-36.
 
Tulsa held a 15-2 edge in fastbreak points and converted 20 points off of 10 Shocker turnovers.
 
WSU led 21-20 at the 6:39-mark of the first half on Etienne's 200^th triple but managed just three more points over the remainder of the period.
 
Council played less than five minutes in the period after picking up two quick fouls. Already without Porter, the Shocker offense languished, missing 10 of its next 11 shots.
 
Tulsa went into the half on a 14-3 run and scored the first five points of the second half to take a 15-point lead, 39-24.
 
Horne scored on consecutive trips – a three and a putback – to give Tulsa its largest lead of the afternoon, 48-32, with 12:41 remaining.
 
The Shockers found a spark soon after. Dennis made a three, Grant drove for a three-point play and Dennis made another jumper in the lane during an 8-0 run that sliced the deficit in half.
 
Council stepped up with nine points over a four-minute stretch. His deep three made it a 54-51 game with 4:22 to go. After Tulsa converted two free throws, he skied for an offensive rebound and putback to cut the margin to 56-53.
 
Tulsa scored 17 points on 8-of-10 free throw shooting over the last 3:24 to seal the win – just its third in the past 20 meetings between the schools.