There was the usual snipping of the nets last week in Sioux Falls after Oral Roberts had resoundingly punched its ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Recently-crowned tournament Most Outstanding Player Max Abmas climbed the ladder with a pair of orange scissors to take his piece of nylon. Connor Vanover, like only few can, eschewed the ladder entirely to do his part. 
 
In that mix was, of course, Carlos Jürgens. The redshirt senior knows his way around a pair of scissors, and not just because he cut down net after net after net as a key part of ORU’s run to the Sweet 16 in 2021. The man known as “Barber Los” around campus is also keeping the 12th-seeded Golden Eagles looking fresh as they head out to play No. 5 Duke in yet another NCAA Tournament. 
 
“I bought myself new barber gear: clippers, combs, all the little sprays,” Jürgens said. “I’m cutting the whole team, I’m even cutting some of the coaches’ hair.”
 
The hair-based hobby started out of necessity. Jürgens noticed some of his teammates were in need of a cut as barber shops closed during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. He had a pair of old clippers and, after a few YouTube videos, offered to step up and help out. It started with Director of Player Development Iain Laymon and former Golden Eagle forward Francis Lacis and, as he got better and better, people took notice. Everyone wanted a Barber Los cut. 
 
Problem is, if you’re not on the team, you’re out of luck during the season. 
 
“During the season, I only take my teammates,” Jürgens said, with three haircuts already on his docket for later that afternoon. “It helps build team chemistry.”
 
Cuts and continiuty 
That chemistry is a big reason the Golden Eagles stormed through the Summit en route to a historic 30-win season and are set up for another March run. 
 
Abmas will understandably grab the national headlines as people around the country consider penciling in ORU over the bluest of blue bloods. But the continuity and experience brought by Jürgens, Kareem Thompson and D.J. Weaver has been an important part of the team’s success. All three logged major minutes alongside Abmas during the 2021 run, and make up a team that is in the top 27 in the country in both experience and minutes continuity per kenpom.com. 
 
For Jürgens, that history has made a difference throughout the year. 
 
“Coach [Paul] Mills always says player-coached teams are better than coach-coached teams, and that’s one of the perks of having a veteran group,” he said. “We know how to handle business when things aren’t going our way.”
 
The team, which Mills called the most driven he’s seen in his 27 years of coaching, has kept things on course. They stayed competitive in three of their four losses, all to quality opposition and all in hostile road environments at Saint Mary’s, Utah State and New Mexico. They fended off a pair of surprising challenges at home from Kansas City and North Dakota at different points of the year, and emerged with wins from big late season road contests at St. Thomas and South Dakota State. 
 
And most importantly, the Golden Eagles went to Sioux Falls and took care of business with a target on their back. Despite an 18-0 regular season record, Jürgens said ORU didn’t take its final test lightly as it embarked for the league tournament. 
 
“There was definitely confidence but also there’s also a pressure that’s natural, it keeps you on your toes, it gives you that extra boost. Everyone wants to take us out, ORU is the team that everyone wants to take down,” he said. “As a leader it’s my job to make sure my teammates are on the same page.” 
 
Embracing the opportunity
It certainly wasn’t a given that Jürgens would ascend to that role when he signed with the Golden Eagles in 2017. It also wasn’t a given that ORU would be in the position to dominate the league in the way it has this season. 
 
At the time, the program was coming off an 11-21 (5-9) campaign in Mills’ first year at the helm, its third straight losing season. Jürgens was a combo guard prospect from Estonia with several Division II offers but just one, from Mills and ORU, at the Division I level. He said he was ready to grab that opportunity with both hands, which was the opposite of how first got into the sport. 
 
At the beginning, no one pushed Jürgens into basketball. 
 
His father had been a volleyball player and as a young child, Jürgens loved to run and was drawn to track. When he was in first grade, a basketball academy opened near his home in Tartu, Estonia and he gave it a chance with a friend. It didn’t stick, and he was right back on the track. But the basketball coach at the academy had seen something special. He called Jürgens’ mom and tried to persuade her to have her son come back to the court because he saw a good basketball player waiting to be unleashed. 
 
A decade later, Mills and ORU fans are probably grateful for that call. 
 
“I thought, ‘I don’t have anything to lose, so I may as well go back and try again,’ and since then I’ve been in love with the sport,” Jürgens said. 
 
Hand in hand, player and program have grown ever since the Baltic native landed in Tulsa. Jürgens has been a pivotal part of Mills’ rotation from day one, averaging 22.4 minutes per game as a freshman and – after a redshirt season the following year – has now played in (134) and started (81) a massive amount of games over his career. 
 
He’s been the ultimate glue guy during his time playing alongside Abmas, Kevin Obanor, Connor Vanover and Isaac McBride. He’s pitched in all areas of the court as a quality wing defender and capable outside shooter and passer, and is coming off the most productive year of his career (9.2 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 33.7 3P%). 
 
Jürgens has also shown up in ORU’s biggest moments. 
 
He averaged 37.6 minutes per game over the Golden Eagles run to the 2021 Sweet 16, and helped get the wheels greased in the opening win over Ohio State, tying a career-high against Division I competition with six assists. Two of those set up Abmas three’s in a pivotal sequence toward the end of the fist half. And this year, he scored a team-high 21 points against UND as he helped kickstart the Golden Eagles’ run to the aumatic bid in Sioux Falls. 
 
That was the plan when he grabbed that opportunity Mills gave him so many years ago.
 
“I just wanted to find a way to take [the program] to the next level, to change the program, to bring more fans to the gym,” Jürgens said. “I have been here for a long time and long enough to see how this whole program has been turned around. It’s been a special honor to witness with my own eyes.”
 
Barber Los, and his freshly-styled teammates, now take the next step on that journey Thursday in Orlando against Duke.

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