- Welcome back.

Well, tonight the dance is over

after a Cinderella story run over

for Oral Robert's Universitymen's basketball team.

The 15 seed team from Tulsa, Oklahoma

lost to Arkansas, Saturday,after advancing to the Sweet 16

for the second time inthe schools history.

This after the Golden Eagles

pulled off the upset ofthe NCAA men's tournament,

beating 2 seed Ohio State in overtime

before besting 7 seed Florida.

The March Madness sparkinginterest in admissions

and attracting controversy

after "USA Today" op-ed condemnedthe Christian university

over the schools LGBT policy.

- Joining us now is William Wilson,

President of Oral Robert's University.

Dr. Wilson welcome to "Faith Nation."

- Thank you.- We wanted, of course,

to talk to you about the historic run.

But first, Dr. Wilson, ifwe could get you to weigh in

on something else that you raninto which is cancel culture.

Dr. Wilson what does itsay about society today

that a Christian schoolscode of conduct, like ORU's,

can become the focus of aNCAA basketball tournament

rather than the competition on the court?

- Well it is unfortunate, or course.

We didn't want to take awayfrom the student athletes

who gave so much to be in the tourney

and did such a great job.

Our whole coaching staff,

our student body, of course,was excited to be there.

You know, really, when you track it down,

it was only one or twopeople that wrote articles

and then other people sortof piled on and joined.

But the response from theChristian community was fantastic,

in defending ORU.

Bottom line is

we believe in the Bible atOral Robert's University,

we have our views on these issues.

They are nothing new.

We've been around for over 50 years

and we're committed to havinga culture and an ethos at ORU

grounded in the word of God,and one that gives our students

the very best chance for success.

So, we're grateful, we're thankful.

We don't expect everyone to agree with us.

There's room in Americafor diverse opinions,

we accept that

and we appreciate peoplerespecting our opinion

and not being religiouslydiscriminate against us.

- Well the men's Golden Eagles,

they fell short of movingto the Elite Eight,

denied by a last minute three pointer

in the final seconds ofthe game against Arkansas.

No doubt a tough, tough loss,

still the entire ORUcommunity must feel so proud.

Tell us about this season.

- Well, of course,

we were within two inchesof being in the Elite Eight,

a great shot at the end ofthe game that almost went in.

You know at ORU

we're not defined by winningor losing a basketball game,

we're a much deeper culture than that

and we're grateful for the opportunity

to use the platform thatGod gave us at the Sweet 16

to glorify him.

For your viewers that watched us

during the journey of the Sweet 16,

you know that our coach and our players

consistently gave God the glory

and used their platform

to give God praise andthanks through it all

and we're very proud of that.

That's what we teach them to do

and we are thankful

for the culture andethos of this university,

which is whole person education.

- Well Dr. Wilson,

we really appreciate all thatyou did to make time for us.

We know it's been a busy season

and congratulations onbusting up so many brackets.

- (laughing) Yeah, it was afun run, we're so delighted,

we appreciate theexposure around the world.

Our Golden Eagles are fantastic.

We're looking forward to next year.

- All right.

- Getting to that Elite Eight and beyond,

and we're developing quite a thing

here in our basketball team,

and we're very excited about it.

- All right, thank you so much.