East Carolina Readies for AAC Road Rematch with Tulane

Tulane looks to snap a three-game losing skid and earn its first American Athletic Conference regular season series sweep of the year against ECU Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET in a Valentine’s Day matchup at Fogelman Arena.

The Green Wave hold a 13-10 overall edge in the series after beating ECU 71-69 in overtime in the two team’s prior matchup in Greenville.

In that game, Melvin Frazier scored 18 of his 22 points in the first half to go along with eight rebounds to lead three Tulane players in double-figures including Cam Reynolds with 16 and Jordan Cornish with ten.

Frazier scored 11 in his first game back from an injury in a 31 point loss to Houston this past Sunday.

Shawn Williams led ECU with 15 points and Kentrell Barkley added 12 points to go along with a career high 18 rebounds in the last meeting between the two teams. B.J. Tyson also scored 12. Isaac Fleming and K.J. Davis added ten points each.

The Pirates had the basketball for the last possession of the contest, down by two points with 8.1 seconds remaining. Shawn Williams turned the ball over with an errant pass and ECU fouled Cam Reynolds who missed from the free throw line. ECU got the rebound and B.J. Tyson caught the basketball but then turned the ball over in transition and the Green Wave held on for the victory.

“We had it right there in our hands. It’s a tough one, a real tough one,” Tyson said after the game, “We fought back. Guys guys gave it all that they could and we just lost it at the end.

This time the Pirates will be looking to even the score when they travel to the Big Easy to take on the Green Wave. Tyson enters the contest just fifteen points shy of the all-time AAC scoring lead and he talked about what his team has to do in order to be successful against Tulane Wednesday night.

“We went back and watched the whole overtime and we looked at areas where we could have scored and we had miscommunication in the zone, so we’re just preparing ourselves for that,” Tyson told PirateIllustrated.com prior to the final home practice before boarding the plane to New Orleans, “We can’t come out dragging. We’ve got to come out with a strong start especially since we’re on the road. We just want to execute and stop them.”

The overtime loss to Tulane was a bitter pill to swallow after Tyson hit a game tying circus shot underneath the basket off of a full court pass from Kentrell Barkley before falling by two points in overtime.

“It was a tough ending to what was a heck of a night for us particularly in the second half,” interim ECU head coach Mike Perry told PirateIllustrated.com.

“We’re scoring the basketball more now clearly but now we need the defense to get on the same page with our offense. We had two pretty good defensive outings at home and we need to be able to duplicate that when we’re on the road as well.”

The Pirates enter Wednesday night’s contest looking for their tenth win against 14 losses.

ECU has won just three of their last eleven games. The Pirates rank 11th in the AAC in scoring defense (72.6), scoring margin (-5.9), free throw percentage (.647) and turnover margin (-2.4), and last in 3-point field goal percentage (.282), but rank third in the league in defending the 3-point line (.320).

Freshman forward Dimitri Spasojevic is second in the AAC in field goal percentage (.585), Isaac Fleming is second in assists per game (4.9) and Kentrell Barkley is fifth in rebounding (7.5). 6-8 Justin Whatley is getting better every game as is 6-5 freshman guard K.J. Davis.

Tulane has hit ten or more treys in seven games this season and is one of just 24 teams and two in the AAC with five players who average in double-figures in scoring.

Melvin Frazier (16.3), Cameron Reynolds (15.6), Samir Sehic (10.5), Jordan Cornish (10.0) and Ray Ona Embo (10.0) are responsible for 84.2 percent of the Green Wave's scoring.

Game time is at 8 o’clock and will be televised on ESPNews and broadcasted on the IMG-Pirate Sports Radio Network.

PI AUDIO: ECU Head Coach Mike Perry Discusses the Upcoming Tulane Game

PI AUDIO: B.J. Tyson Talks Strategy Heading into the Tulane Game