Omaha men’s basketball used a 21-0 second-half run to blow out Oral Roberts 80-57 on Saturday.
With the win, the Mavericks (19-12) claimed the outright Summit League title and tied the program’s best record since joining the conference at 13-3.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Sole Summit League Champs
Oral Roberts, the last-place team in the league, upset St. Thomas last Saturday while the Mavericks avenged an earlier loss to South Dakota. That guaranteed Omaha at least a share of the title with a one-game lead and one to play.
All the Mavericks had to do to win the title outright was to defeat that same Oral Roberts squad, which they did in emphatic fashion. Winning the program’s first conference title since moving to Division I means a lot to the current group, and who it happened against made it all the sweeter for the team’s senior leaders.
“It means a lot,” Marquel Sutton said. “We made history today, being the first team to [to win the Summit]. I said it the other day, I always get excited when we play ORU because they’re in Tulsa, that’s where I’m from. They never recruited me out of high school or JUCO, so it’s always good getting payback on them.”
JJ White, who lived in Oklahoma as well before moving to Atlanta, shared a similar sentiment. Oral Roberts made contact with him during his recruitment but never offered a scholarship.
Omaha hired alumnus Chris Crutchfield in 2022 after a 5-25 season. The Mavericks went 9-23 (4-14 Summit League) his first season. Last year, they finished below .500 again at 15-18 (7-9). Now, in year three, they’re champions.
“It means a lot. I tell people this all the time, this is where I started, and it’s made me who I am today, being a student-athlete here, being a student here, having a chance to be a GA here, and I learned a lot of things in Omaha as a young man,” Crutchfield said. “When I had the opportunity to come back to be the head coach, our goal was to make this basketball program relevant, and I knew we could do it. I knew we had a bunch of things in this city, with this facility, that we could sell to get the right young men to come. We just had to put together the blueprint, and they followed it to a T.”
This Omaha team didn’t have the look of a champion from the start. The Mavericks won just four of their first 13 games, one of which was against an NCCAA team. Five of those nine nonconference losses came against teams ranked outside the top-100 in KenPom, including No. 217 Abilene Christian, No. 282 Southern Utah and No. 290 Alabama State. The Mavericks themselves ranked 302nd heading into Summit League play. Since then, they’ve won 13 of 16 and have climbed to 183rd in KenPom, earning the right to cut down the nets at Baxter Arena.
“I’m proud, so proud,” Crutchfield said. “I’ll get emotional up here and start crying in a minute here. I’m just so proud of the fact that we were able to do it in a short period of time, and we did it, kind of, unconventionally, because we were losing early in the year. We were 4-11 [sic], and everybody scratched us off. We were picked eighth in the league, and everybody thought that’s what we were going to finish.
“Credit to these guys, they just said, ‘Hey, we’re a better basketball team than what we played in the noncon.’ They kind of got it all together, got it all together. We didn’t change much. We didn’t change much, and they got it all fixed. As an alumnus and as a former player, it’s really a proud moment to be able to bring a conference championship back to the city.”
The trash can tradition that has taken the college basketball world by storm reached a new level last week when a pair of AEW wrestlers took part in the postgame trash can beating. On Saturday, Omaha incorporated an AEW championship belt into the post-game celebration — delivered in a unique way by Omaha Chancellor Joanne Li.
The best celebration of them all 🗑️🏆😤 pic.twitter.com/kp9VNXdVUd
— Hurrdat Sports (@HurrdatSports) March 1, 2025
“I suggested it two or three days ago,” Crutchfield said. “I didn’t know it was going to happen, and didn’t know how it was going to happen, but Adrian [Dowell], our AD, talked her into doing it, and she had no problem doing it. I thought that was the most fun thing ever, and it was big time for her to do that. That’s how bought in our chancellor is in our athletic department; not just basketball, every sport she’s supported. From day one, she supported us, and supported me, and she’s all in. We can’t say that about a lot of schools, and we can say that about but Omaha. She’s bought in to athletics.”
With the conference title secured, Omaha will head to Sioux Falls next week as the No. 1 seed in the Summit League Tournament looking to make even more history.
Second-Half Dominance
Omaha was ready to go from the jump, using a 13-0 run early to build a 17-3 lead and get the Baxter Arena crowd pumped up. To Oral Robert’s credit, the Golden Eagles settled in from there. They trimmed the lead to three heading into halftime after shooting 50% from the field in the first 20 points, then 7-foot-3 center Mathok Majok threw down a dunk to open the second half and make it a one-point game.
Defensive intensity was the emphasis during Crutchfield’s halftime address, and his players responded in the second half. Omaha held Oral Roberts to 19 points on 6-of-28 from the field with seven turnovers. Two of those buckets and seven of those points came in the final two minutes after Omaha had pulled its starters.
Issac McBride, the preseason Summit League Player of the Year, went into the game averaging 19.5 points while shooting 40.2% from 3. He finished with three points on 1-of-9 shooting, including 0-of-5 from deep, against the Mavericks. Omaha shaped its game plan around locking down McBride in the first half, and it led to opportunities for his teammates. In the second half, Crutchfield said they decided to defend him straight up, and he still didn’t get loose.
Oral Roberts continued to battle early in the second half, but Omaha put the Golden Eagles away with a 21-0 run to stretch a seven-point lead to 28. The Mavericks held them scoreless for eight and a half minutes.
“That’s Omaha basketball,” White said. “That’s been the blueprint since we got here. We love to play defense, and if we play defense, get stops and get running, we’re playing at our best. I feel like in the first half we didn’t play our best. Quel got on his, Tone got on us, our leaders got on us, and we responded.”
The Mavs scored 13 fast break points, dished out assists on 11 of their 19 field goals and knocked down seven 3-pointers in the second half as their defense fueled their offense.
Senior Send-Off
Saturday was first and foremost about clinching the Summit League title. However, it was also about celebrating the team’s three seniors in what might be their final game at Baxter Arena.
Sutton, a Summit League Player of the Year candidate, finished with 20 points, nine rebounds, three steals and two assists. White, who was part of Crutchfield’s first recruiting class in Omaha along with Sutton and juniors Tony Osburn and Ja’Sean Glover, added 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting (4-of-7 from 3) and six assists. Back-up big Joshua Streit, a North Dakota State transfer, pulled down five of Omaha’s 15 offensive rebounds, helping the Mavericks earn a 15-6 edge in second-chance points.
With the game firmly in hand late, Crutchfield subbed out each of the three seniors individually and gave the fans a chance to show them some love before the coach shared a moment with them himself.
“I just told them how much I love them, and I just thanked them for staying around, and believing, and believing in everything that we were doing,” Crutchfield said. “Because there were a lot of ugly days, a lot of ugly months, a lot of lot of work that went into getting to this point. As you guys know, in this day and age, kids don’t stay around for the hard stuff. They leave.
“Those four guys, I call them my day one guys; they stayed around. They stayed around and bought in and loved the work and loved the process and then just fell in love with everything that we were doing. They didn’t know if it’s going to love them back, but it did, it ended up loving them back.”
While the seniors each made a big impact in their own way, it was a junior who stole the show to send his veterans out on top. Osburn finished with 22 points, six rebounds and four assists while shooting 6-of-10 from deep.
Osburn scored 11 straight himself during Omaha’s 13-0 first-half run, then he put together a person 8-0 run in the second half as well.
“Man, I don’t want to cuss, but that’s a bad… That kid from Mound City, man, his parents, they bred him with heart,” White said. “Whatever he does, he does it 1010%. He’s going to put his all out there. He literally started the game, dude hit him in the eye, and when he came back in, I saw the look on his face, and I knew the game was over. I knew he’s going to take over.”
Saturday’s post-game celebration was a storybook ending for a group that has poured so much of themselves into the program over the past three years.
“You couldn’t write it any more perfect,” White said. “To be around these guys every day, go to war with them, eat with them, sleep. We’re all just at the hotels, kicking it every time we’re on the road, all with each other every day. To experience this with this group of guys, it’s the best thing I can ask for.”
