Michael Peters
Tulsa World TU Sports Reporter
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In the era of the transfer portal, it’s harder than ever to build chemistry on college basketball rosters.
But that hasn’t stopped both Tulsa men’s basketball coach Eric Konkol and women’s basketball coach Angie Nelp from continuing to preach culture.
The two coaches met with local media Monday, a couple of weeks into official practices and about a month before the season opener.
The TU men feature 12 new players on a team that went 13-20 last year, while the Hurricane women, which finished 17-15 in 2024-25, also has 12 new faces on its roster.
“One of the things that we really focused on early on was building our team chemistry and the way that we connect and the way that we communicate, both on and off the floor,” Nelp said. “The other thing that we do that I think is really important is that we’re able to discover each other’s strengths.
“It’s fun to discover the different strengths that they have and figure out how we can help each other elevate those strengths.”
Here are more talking points from Monday’s basketball media session:
Men’s team starting with the basics
With so many new players on the roster, Konkol decided he would start off this season with the basics. Not shooting and dribbling, but first and last names.
“We’ve had them together since June, and in our first meeting, I said, ‘We’ve got to learn each other’s names,’” Konkol said. “And we started off with that, and clearly didn’t know everybody.
“And then shortly after, learning everybody’s game, and that’s ongoing. Enhancing their game, building consistency, the connection among the group, but this has been a fun group to coach.”
As a way for players and staff to better relate with one another, whenever Konkol and his team gather together they share their ‘5Hs’ — history, a highlight, a hero, a heartbreak and hopes.
“We’ve organized a lot of different events and opportunities for them to hang out,” Konkol said. “We’ve got a pretty social group. They like to go to eat together.
“They’ve gotten to know each other very, very well. But those things are ongoing, and we’re going to learn a lot more once we start playing against some other teams.”
The universal language of basketball
For the TU women’s basketball team, the “getting to know you” process has been compounded by the team’s variety of cultures. The Hurricane features seven foreign players from six different countries. Nelp only had two foreign players in her first four seasons combined.
“I think rebound is pretty clear for everybody, so we’ve got that one covered,” Nelp joked on Monday. “It’s certainly been fun. I wish that I knew about four different languages.
“But it’s certainly been fun as we come together in those moments. Anytime that there may be some communication gaps, we try to fill those and we have joy in filling those with one another. The scoreboard speaks to winning, and basketball is a universal game.”
An underrated issue with integrating foreign players into women’s college basketball are the subtle rules differences with international play.
“The biggest thing that we have right now is the difference in FIBA rules and the rules here in the U.S. and some of those little nuances that we have to teach and be familiar with,” Nelp said. “But we have a good time with that in practice, and it’s been a lot of fun.”
Breaking the NET
The full men’s and women’s basketball schedules for American Conference teams weren’t announced until the end of September.
According to TU athletic director Justin Moore on the school’s Eye of the Hurricane podcast, the delay in announcing the schedule was due to the time it took the conference’s TV partners to chose their broadcast games.
The lack of what most would view as quality home competition, comes from the way schools are scheduling to improve their NET ranking, a key metric used by the NCAA to select tournament teams.
“If you look at the components of the NET, the No. 1 component of the net is scoring margin,” Konkol said. “And that’s why you’ll see a number of schedules out there that they don’t have a single road game, maybe one, and if they are playing one it’s against another Power 4 school.”
As a result of its difficulty scheduling home games against bigger schools, TU is playing four neutral site games and a total of seven non-conference games away from home — it’s playing six home non-conference game.
TU’s most high profile home non-conference game comes Dec. 6 against Missouri State. Two of the six games are against non-Division I opponents. The Hurricane does play an away game against Kansas State.
“There’s a very strategic emphasis with this year’s schedule,” Konkol said. “We really took a page out of the Mountain West playbook from a couple of years ago with playing two non-Division I that don’t count on our record, just like five of their six NCAA Tournament teams did two years ago, and playing a number of neutral sites.
“I think manipulate the NET is not exactly the thing, but trying to play to the NET’s strengths.”
sports@tulsaworld.com
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Michael Peters
Tulsa World TU Sports Reporter
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