Davidson erased a 13 point early second half Pirate lead to earn a 76-67 win over cold shooting East Carolina Sunday night in the consolation bracket of the Myrtle Beach Invitational.
Tristen Newton started off hot with 18 first half points and had 28 points for the game, but ECU(4-2) did not give him much scoring help and ran out of gas down the stretch. Vance Jackson was the only other ECU player in double-figures with twelve.
Hyunjung Lee led Davidson with 25 points and ten boards along with 14 points from Luca Brajkovic, 11 from Sam Mennenga and ten points from Foster Loyer in the victory. Davidson committed just six turnovers.
In what was a very winnable contest, ECU head coach Joe Dooley was understandably not pleased with the way his team ran out of gas in the second half.
“We could talk about the first half. We were bad in the second half. I thought we got off to a good start. In the second half we went away from some of the things that got us going,” Dooley said, “I thought they almost totally dominated the second half and outscored us by twenty. The big difference was on the backboard and our shot selection at times got a little suspect as we got tired. We need to do a better job understanding time, score and momentum.”
“We led the game for thirty minutes, but not the last three and a half minutes which are the most important component of the game,” said Dooley, “We took some bad shots, missed some free throws and I thought they did a really good job. They made some big shots. 35 (Brajkovic) made a huge three, they rebounded, got a couple of loose balls that we needed to run down and I thought that was the difference in the game.”
A pair of Vance Jackson treys and a Tristen Newton bomb from up top had ECU in front 11-5, but ten points from Hyunjung Lee kept Davidson in the game early.
Nine straight ECU points had the Pirates up 20-14 at the midway point of the first half before a pair of Wildcat treys from Foster Loyer and Luka Brajkovic cut the lead to two at the seven minute mark.
Then a 7-0 Pirate run keyed by Tristen Newton, who scored his twelfth point on a three-pointer from the right corner, had ECU up by nine at 29-20.
Newton with 18 points in the first half and a J.J. Miles bomb off the inbounds pass with less than two seconds left had ECU up 45-34 at the intermission. Vance Jackson scored nine in the first twenty minutes and Miles generated eight points but nether got much going scoring wise in the second half.
Hyunjung Lee scored 15 points in the first half to lead Davidson(3-2).
ECU made 52 percent of their shots in the first twenty minutes including 7-14 from the arc and 8-8 from the free throw line and looked to be on their way to another win, but the Pirates cooled off to just 42 percent for the game and 5 of 13 from the stripe in the second half. Meanwhile Davidson improved from 38 percent shooting in the first half to 43 percent in the end and it proved to be enough for the victory. The Wildcats made 9 of 10 from the stripe for the evening.
Eight straight Davidson points capped off by a Grant Huffman three-pointer in the paint cut the lead to just four with 12:19 left when ECU went ice cold offensively.
Just three ECU baskets in ten minutes and Sam Mennenga’s dunk off a feed from Lee suddenly had the Wildcats back within two at 55-53 midway into the second period. Then Mennegna’s basket in the paint and a trey from Lee allowed Davidson to recapture the lead at 60-58 with seven minutes to go.
J.J. Miles was fouled behind the arc with a chance to tie the game for ECU, but he made just one of three from the line and that seemed to take the life out of the Pirates. Luca Brajkovic then scored at the other end for a four point turnaround to give Davidson a 67-64 lead with just two minutes remaining. A Wildcat steal then led to another easy Mennenga basket.
ECU finally answered with a Newton three-point play in the paint that cut the lead to two with a minute and a half left. But a Brajkovic catch and shoot for three from the arc broke the Pirates' back expanding the Davidson lead back to five at 72-67 with 30 seconds on the game clock. The Wildcats cruised the rest of the way.
East Carolina returns to action this Saturday afternoon against Coppin State at 4 p.m. in Minges Coliseum.
