Pirates Travel To Tulsa For First Conference Road Game
January 05, 2016 | Men's Basketball
TULSA, Okla. --- East Carolina's attempt at its first road win will come against a team that it has historically struggled to beat.
The Pirates will look for just their third win in 16 all-time match-ups against Tulsa Tuesday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center and end a four-game losing streak to the Golden Hurricane.
East Carolina (8-6, 0-1) dropped its first home game of the year Saturday, falling 71-68 to UCF. The Pirates led by 10 with 8:41 left in the second half, but the Knights went on an 18-6 run to take a 61-59 lead for good with 3:00 to go as the Pirates made just 3 of their final 15 attempts.
B.J. Tyson scored 17 points and Caleb White added 16 points for the Pirates, who collected a season-high 10 steals and forced a season-best 19 turnovers, but couldn't overcome a subpar shooting night.
"We've got to have guys who are going to be able to make some plays in the last three minutes of a game," ECU Head Coach Jeff Lebo said. "On the road, we've had multiple opportunities in the last three minutes of close games and haven't been able to finish."
ECU has lost all four of its true road games this season: California, San Diego State, College of Charleston and James Madison, having led or been within three in the final two minutes of three of those games.
The Pirates last win over Tulsa (8-6, 0-2) came on the road three years ago behind a 23-point performance from Maurice Kemp and 17 from Akeem Richmond on the strength of five 3-pointers.
Tyson and White are each capable of duplicating the performances of their predecessors. Tyson ranks sixth in the conference in scoring with 15.1 points per game (ppg), while White is 10th at 14.1 ppg and shooting over 40 percent outside the 3-point arc.
The Pirates are shooting 35 percent from 3 this season with Tulsa allowing its opponents to shoot a league-high 38.8 percent outside the arc.
The Golden Hurricane opened conference play against arguably the league's best two teams, SMU and Cincinnati, and suffered a pair of losses.
The senior combination of Shaq Harrison (17.9 ppg) and James Woodard (15.9 ppg) rank two and three in The American in scoring with the Golden Hurricane posting the conference's seventh-highest scoring offense (74.9 ppg), one spot ahead of ECU (72.1 ppg).
| Game 15: Tulsa | |
| Date | Tuesday, Jan. 5 |
| Time | 6 p.m. CST |
| Location | Tulsa, Okla. (Donald W. Reynolds Center) |
| Tickets | Buy Tickets |
| Live Game Coverage |  TV/Online: ESPNEWS/WatchESPN  Radio: WNCT 107.9 FM | ECU Pirates On Demand (Listen Live) TuneIn Radio Online (within the app search ECU or Pirate IMG Sports Network)
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| Live Stats | SideArm Stats |
| Game Notes | East Carolina  | Tulsa |
| @ECUScoreboard | |
