{"id":701002,"date":"2026-04-06T07:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T07:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701002\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T07:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T07:01:17","slug":"auburn-beats-tulsa-in-ot-for-first-nit-championship-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701002\/","title":{"rendered":"Auburn beats Tulsa in OT for first NIT championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>INDIANAPOLIS &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5176314\/kevin-overton\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Overton<\/a> had 26 points, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/4873089\/tahaad-pettiford\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tahaad Pettiford<\/a> scored 24 and Auburn took advantage of a late 5-second violation in regulation to beat Tulsa 92-86 in overtime on Sunday night and win its first NIT championship.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5313566\/ade-popoola\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ade Popoola<\/a> sank a 3-pointer to give Tulsa a 76-71 lead with 1:05 left in regulation. Pettiford hit a 3-pointer with 44 seconds remaining and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5311502\/elyjah-freeman\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elyjah Freeman<\/a> made the second of two free throws following two foul shots by Tulsa&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5240387\/tyler-behrend\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyler Behrend<\/a> for a 78-75 lead. But the Golden Hurricane couldn&#8217;t inbound the ball following Freeman&#8217;s make and Overton buried a baseline 3-pointer with eight seconds left to force OT.<\/p>\n<p>Overton hit his fifth 3 to put Auburn (22-16) up 89-84 and the Tigers led over the final 3:31 of the extra period.<\/p>\n<p>Overton hit 7 of 13 shots and 7 of 8 free throws. Pettiford had four 3-pointers and eight assists. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5075625\/keyshawn-hall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Keyshawn Hall<\/a> totaled 11 points and 12 rebounds. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5095154\/sebastian-williams-adams\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sebastian Williams-Adams<\/a> added 13 points off the bench and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5311506\/filip-jovic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Filip Jovic<\/a> scored 12.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5174623\/david-green\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Green<\/a> had 25 points, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5178210\/tylen-riley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tylen Riley<\/a> scored 20 and Popoola added 13 for Tulsa (30-8), which finished with the second most wins in program history.<\/p>\n<p>Pettiford had 15 points by halftime and Overton scored 14 for a 48-31 advantage after jumping out to a 34-13 lead.<\/p>\n<p>Tulsa trailed 55-35, but Green had six straight points and scored eight in a 12-0 run to cut it to 57-51 with 12:18 remaining. Pettiford made two free throws to end the run, but Green and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/player\/_\/id\/5241411\/miles-barnstable\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Miles Barnstable<\/a> followed with 3-pointers and Green added two foul shots to tie. Riley hit two free throws to extend a 24-2 run and Tulsa took its first lead 61-59 with 10:26 left.<\/p>\n<p>Tulsa won NIT titles in 1981 and 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS &#8212; Kevin Overton had 26 points, Tahaad Pettiford scored 24 and Auburn took advantage of a late&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-701002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116356479975288136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}