ECU clips Owls, aims for
Golden Eagles
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Senior forward Darrius
Morrow scored 16 points and dished out five assists and junior guard
Erin Straughn had 13 points, 11 rebounds and a pair of blocks to help
No. 10 seed East Carolina knock off seventh seed Rice 68-66 Wednesday in
the first round of the Conference USA Tournament in Memphis.
The Pirates made up an
six-point deficit and forged ahead over the final eight minutes, taking
the lead for good on a layup by junior forward Maurice Kemp with 57
seconds remaining. Kemp finished with 10 points and eight rebounds.
In a game that featured
eight ties and 13 lead changes, East Carolina established dominance of
the backboards in the second half to gradually wrest the advantage in
the see-saw affair.
"That was big," said ECU
coach Jeff Lebo after the game. "Early in the season, our first six
games, we were just getting crushed on the glass, just manhandled. We
were losing, on the boards, by 16 or 18. But, as the season went on, we
have done a much better job of coming down the stretch and keeping the
opposing teams off of the glass. And we did a lot of drills to work on
that."
After being outrebounded
20-14 before intermission, the Pirates won the battle of the caroms
23-10 in the second frame and finished with a 20-2 advantage on
second-chance points scored.
The glaring swing in his
team's rebounding fortunes was not lost on Rice coach Ben Braun.
"In the first half, I
thought we established ourselves on the boards defensively and we had
the edge rebounding," Braun said after the game. "In the second half, I
thought the key to ECU's turnaround was them getting offensive putbacks
and reloads and that really hurt us."
Freshman guard Paris
Roberts-Campbell produced 12 points for East Carolina on four
3-pointers, including a pair of back-to-back bombs that helped dampen a
13-4 Owls run to start the game.
Junior forward Arsalan
Kazemi had 10 points and 12 rebounds and senior forward Lucas Kuipers
added 10 points for Rice.
The Pirates will try to
keep their season alive today in a 1 p.m. matchup against No. 2 seed
Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles, top seed Memphis, third seed Tulsa and
No. 4 seed Central Florida had first round byes on Wednesday.
In a pair of regular
season matchups against USM, East Carolina lost a 78-76 upset bid in
Hattiesburg on Jan. 4 and was soundly defeated 72-60 in Greenville on
Jan. 25.
A win by the Pirates would
propel them into the semifinals for the second year in a row. East
Carolina got past UCF in last season's first round and stunned No. 1
seed UAB in the quarterfinals before falling to eventual tourney
champion Memphis one step short of the title game.
BOX SCORE
EAST CAROLINA 68,
RICE 66
Date: Wednesday, Mar. 7, 2012
Event: Conference USA Tournament First Round
Place: FedExForum, Memphis, TN
Attendance: 8,356
Records: ECU 15-15; Rice 17-15.
SCORE BY PERIODS 1 2 FINAL
East Carolina 32
36 - 68
Rice
33 33 - 66
ECU
PIRATES
#
PLAYER FG 3PT FT R PTS MIN
......................... .... ....
.... .. ...
...
01 Morrow, Darrius..... f 6-12 0-0
4-4 3 16 36
12 Sampson, Robert..... f 2-6
1-3 0-0 4 5 14
00 Paul, Miguel........ g 2-10 1-3
2-3 1 7 35
11 Gaines, Corvonn..... g 2-3
1-2 0-0 1 5 23
23 Straughn, Erin...... g 5-9
3-5 0-0 11 13 35
02 Kemp, Maurice......... 5-10 0-2
0-2 8 10 29
22 Campbell, Paris....... 4-9
4-9 0-0 2 12 26
35 Morales, Darius....... 0-2
0-0 0-0 2 0
2
TEAM.....................
5
TOTALS................... 26-61 10-24
6-9 37 68 200
PERCENT.................. 42.6 41.7
66.7
RICE
OWLS
#
PLAYER FG 3PT FT R PTS MIN
......................... .... ....
.... .. ...
...
12 Reischel, Jarelle... f 3-5
0-1 0-0 1 6 16
14 Kazemi, Arsalan..... f 5-9
0-0 0-1 12 10 34
34 Oraby, Omar......... c 4-6
0-0 1-1 3 9 23
03 Jackson, Tamir...... g 3-7
0-2 2-5 2 8 30
31 Ennis, Dylan........ g 2-3
0-0 0-0 1 4 32
00 Ibrahim, Ahmad........ 0-2
0-0 0-0 0 0
5
04 Frizzelle, Connor..... 4-6
1-1 0-0 3 9 17
15 DeBose, Julian........ 3-5
1-2 1-2 1 8 20
20 Kuipers, Lucas........ 3-10 2-3
2-2 6 10 21
30 Chadwick, David....... 1-1
0-0 0-0 0 2
2
TEAM.....................
1
TOTALS................... 28-54 4-9
6-11 30 66 200
PERCENT.................. 51.9 44.4
54.5
Fouled out: None
Technical Fouls: None
Officials: Ted Hillary, Hal Lusk, Kevin Mathis
PAGE UPDATED
03/08/12 03:09 PM.
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