Josh Brown

Oral Roberts has been to 7 NCAA tournaments with 2 Sweet 16s and an Elite 8. They've beaten Florida, Ohio State, Syracuse & Louisville in the NCAA tournament. They've made 18 Division I postseason tournaments in all. They've got 11 wins over AP Top 25 teams. They've had 18 20-win seasons in D-I. Central Arkansas has had one. Last year. Prior to that, the Bears averaged 9.4 wins per year in their 19 D-I seasons. No NCAAs, no NITs. No AP Top 25 wins. The last time the teams met, in 2022, ORU won 111-78. A year or so ago, never would I have imagined there would be a day that Central Arkansas would beat Oral Roberts by 30 in men's basketball. A day or so ago, I still would not have expected it. But it happened last night in the Farris Center. And it didn't feel like a fluke. And though the margin was surprising, the outcome wasn't at all. Never trailed. Led by double digits for nearly 30 minutes. Never in doubt. This may not necessarily be an all-time great ORU team. It's probably not going to move KenPom's needle a whole lot. Whatever. But for what the two programs have been historically, to see the shift and have the Bears just methodically dominate wire to wire (and to do it in front of such a raucous, engaged, student-heavy crowd) was an incredibly fun way to open the season and further evidence of the remarkable job that @coachjshulman, @WiddersUCA, @maxshulman13, @RMontgomery5 & co. have done in flipping the culture and building a winner. It's just one win – and business is about to pick up with trips to Ole Miss, Arkansas and Oklahoma State coming in an 11-day stretch – but it certainly feels like another special season is in store in Conway.

On top of the passing stats, Omolo had 12 carries for 118 rushing yards – the first time in 25 seasons (and thus the first time in the program’s D1 era) a UCA QB has finished a game with more than 100 yards on the ground, equaling the most since Brian Stallworth’s 118 at Harding on Oct. 6, 2001 (Stallworth also had 100 at Delta State three weeks later). Best I can tell, the last time a UCA QB ran for more yards in a game was 43 years ago when Allen Rock went for 147 against Harding on Nov. 19, 1983. (That was also a completely different era. Where Omolo threw for 243 last night, Rock threw for 878 in 12 games in ’83, having 212 rushes to only 121 pass attempts for the year.) Pretty incredible debut.