East Carolina University
11-15, 4-9
Tulsa
18-7, 11-2
ECU Drops Conference Game to Tulsa, 69-58
February 18, 2015 | Men's Basketball
TULSA, Okla. --- After winning back-to-back home games against UCF and Memphis, ECU suffered its second straight loss on the road Wednesday night, falling 69-58 to Tulsa at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
The Pirates' trio of B.J. Tyson, Terry Whisnant and Caleb White provided the majority of the offense combining for 42 points. Whisnant led the way with 15 points, while White and Tyson provided 14 and 13, respectively. Michel Nzege grabbed seven rebounds for ECU (11-15, 4-9 American), who shot just 20 of 57 for 35 percent overall.
James Woodard led Golden Hurricane with 19 points, scoring 11 in the first half. Brandon Swannegan scored 16 points and Shaquille Harrison added 12 with eight rebounds and six assists for Tulsa, which shot 51 percent from the floor.
The Pirates won the opening tip, scored the game's first basket and held an 11-10 lead at the first media timeout (14:28). Whisnant's first of four 3-pointers on the night put ECU up one. It was the Pirates's last field goal for more than 11 minutes.
Tulsa scored nine unanswered to take a 19-11 lead before White made two free throws to cut the lead to six and end a 7:51 scoring drought.
The Golden Hurricane then quickly ran off six straight points to push its lead to 12, before White's jumper with 3:08 remaining before halftime temporarily ended the Pirates shooting woes. Tulsa ended the half on a 10-4 run to lead 35-19 at the break.
ECU shot just 29.2 percent in the opening half, while Tulsa made 52.0 percent of its field goal attempts as the normally sure-handed Pirates turned the ball over 11 times, which led directly to 14 Hurricane points.
East Carolina never got closer than 12 in the second half until the final two seconds Whisnant completed a three-point play for the final margin.
However, the Pirates did shoot the ball much better in the final 20 minutes particularly from 3 where they made 6 of 10 and finished the game shooting 40 percent outside the arc (8 of 20). They also took much better care of the basketball in the second half, committing just two turnovers.
After back-to-back road games, East Carolina returns to the friendly surrounding of Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum for its next two games with the first coming Saturday morning at 11 a.m. against USF. The Pirates will look to even the season series with Bulls, which won the first match-up, 58-50, earlier this season in Tampa.
