Oral Roberts Preview

Game 11: December 17th

Opponent: Oral Roberts

Location: Omaha, NE

Site: Century Link Center-Omaha

Records: CU 10-0, ORU 0-9

The Jays take on the Golden Eagles of Oral Roberts in the last non-conference home game of the season. (Yes I know, Truman State, but they don’t count). It is also, sadly, the last Saturday night game of the year.

I did a double take when I looked at ORU’s schedule and results so far. 0-9? Really? Yes they have failed to win a game against a D-1 opponent. In fact, they have had only two games where they have had less than a double-digit loss. Oddly enough, those came against two fairly decent teams in Michigan State and Ole Miss. So anything less than a 25 point easy win will be unacceptable.

What you need to know: Another game where the bench mob gets plenty of time on the court. Another thing to look for is with the lack of depth at the 5, how will this affect the rest of the rotation. This could be a big chance for Ronnie Harrell to get some meaningful minutes with the first team.

What you don’t need to know: Many of you who are not as old as I am may not know much about Oral Roberts, others may not know anything at all. So here goes.

Oral Roberts was one of the very early televangelists. He had a large following and a powerful presence. He always ended his shows with the phrase “Something good is going to happen to you.”

To say he was controversial is a bit of an understatement. Roberts claimed to have conversations with a 900 foot Jesus. He also claimed to have commands from God, one of which was to build a university. Hence this is how Oral Roberts University was founded.

As is the case with many high profile preachers plenty of controversy followed Roberts and his family. His son Richard became president of ORU in 1993. By 2007 Richard Roberts was embroiled in a law suit which claimed, among other things, personal use of university funds. Rumors swirled that Richard and his wife Lindsay, “cooked the books” to cover up the misuse of funds. It was also rumored at this time that Lindsay spent an unusual amount of time with teenage boys under the age of eighteen. Richard eventually resigned as president and went back into running the family ministry.

Oral Roberts passed away at the age of 91 and was involved in the university he founded until his death. To his credit the university he envisioned not only became accredited but is flourishing today. No small feat.