Tony Osburn had a night to remember, and so did the Omaha men’s basketball team.
Omaha started the game with an 8-1 run and never looked back, winning 100-75 over South Dakota in the Summit League Tournament semifinals.
“Unbelievable game; our guys were locked in tonight, focused, ready to play.” Coach Chris Crutchfield said. “It started on the defensive end. We were able to get multiple stops and got in transition, made some shots, got the ball to the paint.”
Osburn hit his first 3 one minute and four seconds into the game and his eighth with seven minutes and 43 seconds left to give Omaha a 90-54 lead.
“We got off to a great start,” Crutchfield said. “I thought it probably wore them down a little bit because we got off to a great start and made shots.”
Osburn had 16 of his game-high 30 points in the first six minutes and 52 seconds of the game, giving Omaha 38-11 lead. After not making a field goal in the quarterfinal win against Kansas City on Thursday, Osburn went 9-for-11 from the field, 8-for-9 from 3-point range and a perfect 4-for-4 from the free-throw line. His eight 3s tied a Summit League Tournament record.
“(Coach Crutchfield) told me I owed him one for Thursday. I was pretty bad and didn’t make any shots,” Osburn said. “He believed in me and I believe in myself and my teammates kept coming back to me.”
The Mavericks used a 21-2 run in the middle of the first half, from 11:45 mark to the 7:02 mark, to push their lead to 27.
It was one of the more dominant first halves of college basketball you will see, and absolutely the most dominant 20 minutes the Mavericks played all season.
Crutchfield’s message to the team at the break was to keep their foot on the gas.
“I told the guys to just keep pushing, keep pushing, keep scoring, don’t try to kill the clock and that is what they did,” Crutchfield said.
The Mavs held South Dakota, a top-five scoring offense in the county, to just 7-of-26 from the field in the first 20 minutes including 5-of-16 from three.
For the game, the Coyotes shot just 23-of-66 (34.8%) from the field.
It wasn’t just Osburn, league Player of the Year Marquel Sutton put up 19 points and eight rebounds. First team All-Summit guard JJ White finished with 14 points, four rebounds, six assists and no turnovers in his 24 minutes. The senior point guard surpassed 1,000 career points in the game.
Osburn was plus-39, White plus-31 and starting forward Kamryn Thomas made just one shot on two attempts and was still plus-29.
Omaha is now in the Summit League Tournament Championship game for the first time since the 2018-19 season.
‘Loved our energy, loved our enthusiasm … I’m just proud of these guys for being able to come out on this stage and do what they did tonight,” Crutchfield said. “I’m just so proud of them. We are here to validate, and part three is tomorrow.”
The Mavericks will face No. 2 seed St. Thomas in the final on Sunday, which means the Mavericks have already clinched a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since joining Division I, regardless of the game’s result. The Tommies are still in the midst of their transition to Division I and therefore ineligible for the NCAA Tournament. If St. Thomas wins, the league’s auto-bid would go to Omaha as the regular season champion.
