Paul, Kemp shine in regular season finale

From electronic and staff reports
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Point guard Miguel Paul and forward Maurice Kemp made their final home appearance one to remember.

The senior duo combined for half of East Carolina's points in an 86-79 Conference USA victory over Marshall Saturday night in Greenville in the pre-tournament warmup for both teams.

The outcome sealed the Pirates' first winning season in C-USA games since they joined the hoops side of the league in 2001-02. ECU finished the regular season 18-11 overall, 9-7 in the conference.

Paul nailed 4-of-5 threes and scored 22 points, dishing out 10 assists and polishing his resume for repeat all-conference honors in the process. Paul was named second-team All-Conference USA in 2011-12, his inaugural season running the Pirates' floor game after transferring from Missouri.

Kemp, C-USA's leading scorer much of the season, had 21 points to improve his average to 18.4, a fraction off the pace of the 18.5 mark of leader Joseph Young of Houston. Kemp was 6-of-13 from the floor, 8-of-9 from the charity stripe and grabbed 6 rebounds to burnish his bid for all-league recognition.

Paul and Kemp got solid offensive support from junior guard Akeem Richmond, who came of the bench to score 18 points.

Junior forward Ty Armstrong added 13 points, while junior forward Robert Sampson contributed 7 and swept 12 caroms from the backboards.

Most of the Thundering Herd's scoring punch came from a trio of players. Senior forward Robert Goff's produced a career-high 27 points, junior forward Elijah Pittman had 21 and junior guard DeAndre Kane scored 20.

ECU established an early lead and built the margin to 35-25 by halftime. But Marshall (13-18, 6-10) had a pair of big second half runs, gaining the lead on both occasions before the Pirates countered to retake the advantage.

Two free throws by Paul with 5:13 left gave the Pirates the lead for good at 63-62.

ECU's triumph avenged a 77-56 blowout by the Herd on Jan. 19 in Huntington.

The Pirates head into this week's Conference USA Tournament seeded fourth. They have a first round bye on Wednesday before facing No. 5 seed and tourney host Tulsa in a nationally-televised Thursday night game (9:30 p.m., CBSSN).

Marshall, seeded 9th, will enter the tourney fray on day one, taking on No. 8 seed Tulane in the Wednesday nightcap (9:30 p.m.).

PAGE UPDATED 03/10/13 03:36 AM.

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