Tulsa beats Houston 73-69

[IlliBraves]

Houston gets a wide open look ... CLANK! Tulsa about to win and host the Braves Monday...

Why not at BU?

[daPAWW1]

Lest we Forget Houston was in MVC as well!

BU had some great games with Houston in the MVC way back when! The hotel and dining accomadations in Houston were - well it was another time!

[Bravesfan]

How exciting to get to play Tulsa!!! One of my all-time favorite moments in sports was that game we played with them in 1996 when we were down like 47-30 at half and came back to blow them out in OT. That was one of the loudest crowds in Carver history. Seals vs Parker.

I'm excited that the CBI is allowing us to revive yet another classic rivalry. Hopefully we have some great games. I was always disappointed that BU didn't try to schedule a series w/ Tulsa when they left for the Mountain West, but maybe this could be the catalyst...

I think Tulsa is definately a team on the upswing. They have always had a very rich basketball tradition, with 22 winning seasons out of the previous 23 seasons before that 3 year slide that started in the 2003-2004 season. They have now posted back-to-back 20 win seasons, and definately could be a force to be reckoned with within C-USA. I don't know if they can catch Memphis, but they can definately at least become an at-large contender for years to come.

And the great thing about restarting the rivalry between Tulsa and Bradley is that this would be exactly the type of mid-major power that Bradley could schedule in lieu of any BCS teams that continue to avoid us like the plague, Michigan St and Iowa St notwithstanding. As I have stated on here numerous times before, a schedule full of teams like Kent St, Valparaiso, Tulsa and Butler would boost our RPI, and probably fulfill the quality win requirement that could be the difference between an NCAA invite and an NIT/CBI invite (not that those two tourneys are anything to sneeze at). And if all the Valley teams could schedule teams like this, the conference RPI goes up, and several Valley teams would play themselves into the RPI top 50, thereby creating more opportunities for that quality win, in conference. This is how the "big boys" accumulate their "quality" wins. Why can't the Valley do the same thing like they did two years ago?