The ECU men’s basketball team dropped its home finale on Thursday to Tulsa. As a result, the Pirates will not play in the American Conference tournament.
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Photo credit: Jordan Riley (ECU Sports Information)
Jordan Riley scored a game-high 26 points, but it wasn’t enough as East Carolina fell to Tulsa, 93-66, in the home finale on Thursday night inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum.
Corey Caulker added 15 points on five made threes for the Pirates (11-19, 6-11 American) who never led and saw their hopes at a bid to the conference tournament take a hit.
Tylen Riley was one of five Tulsa (24-6, 12-5 American) players in double figures with a team-high 16 points.
Tulsa jumped out to an 8-0 run behind three early Pirate turnovers and the Golden Hurricane increased their lead to 11 after hitting their first six shots from the floor. ECU still found itself in a double-digit hole going into the second media timeout of the first half, only making three of its first nine shots and trailing 22-10 with 10:36 to go.
Back-to-back threes increased Tulsa’s lead to 17 at the 9:40 mark and the Pirates went into the locker room with its largest halftime deficit of the year at 53-28.
East Carolina cut the lead to 20 on a couple of occasions in the second half but the Golden Hurricane controlled the final 20 minutes to complete the rout.
Up Next
East Carolina closes out the regular season at UAB on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN+.