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ECU Beats Prairie View A&M 76-64

Jayden Gardner gets two of his game high 28 points on this dunk in the first half of ECU's 76-64 win over Prairie View.
Jayden Gardner gets two of his game high 28 points on this dunk in the first half of ECU's 76-64 win over Prairie View. (PirateIllustrated.com photo)

ECU turned a halftime tie into a twelve point 76-64 victory Wednesday night over Prairie View A&M in Minges Coliseum

Jayden Gardner led the Pirates with 28 points and 17 rebounds, Seth LeDay had 13 and 11 boards for the Pirates. Meanwhile, Shawn Williams too had a lot to be thankful for in his return from suspension one day before Thanksgiving. Williams tossed in 18 points including four treys in the Pirates’ fourth win of the season against just two losses since Joe Dooley’s return to ECU.

Devonte Patterson scored 16 to lead the Panthers who fell to 1-5 with the loss. Gary Blackston added 11 and seven rebounds for Prairie View.

Gardner continues to be among those leading the charge in terms of scoring for the Pirates after scoring 15 against Grande Valley on Monday and Wednesday night was no different.

“There were really like no shot blockers tonight, so I really didn’t have to adjust how I played. I just played my game. My teammates kept finding me on nice assists and dump offs, credit to them and we just executed tonight and I got to score a lot.”

Gardner said whenever he did get double-teamed, he was looking for Williams who talked about how it felt to be back on the court and nail his first three-point attempt after a five game suspension to open the season.

“It felt great. I never really left. I’m the same Shawn in practice screaming them on and on the sideline but it felt great to be back,” Williams said afterward, “I knew it was going in but I wasn’t just aiming for it. I was just letting the offense flow.”

K.J. Davis wasn’t bad either scoring nine points to go along with pulling down nine assists for ECU.

“I thought he was great rebounding. I thought there were a couple of stretches where he’s another one who stretches the floor,” said Dooley, “I think he’s going to get better and better. He didn’t get a lot of minutes last year. Some of these guys need experience. It doesn’t look pretty at time but I think experience will help these guys in the long run going forward.”

“K.J. is a true stat sheet stuffer. He’s been a stat sheet stuffer the last few games,” said Gardner.

ECU was playing their fourth game in eight days and Joe Dooley talked about how that factored in Wednesday night’s game.

“The quick turnarounds, we’re not mature enough yet nor experienced enough to change things much which hurts. You can’t change ball screen defenses. There’s a number of things that we’ll be able to do or get better including get some offensive rhythm. These guys switched everything against LeDay which a lot of smaller teams have done. I do think it’s good we’ll get our feet under us and get ready for Saturday.”

“I think one of the things we need to work on and we’ll get better at after a few more games is handling prosperity. We’ve built some leads in a few of these games and we haven’t been able to manage them,” Dooley said, “Part of that today was attributed to turnovers. We had five in the first half and we did a great job of controlling the ball in the second half. We played better but we turned it over and it put pressure on our defense. We need to figure that out as soon as possible.”

Dooley talked about what Williams’ return to the lineup did for his team offensively Wednesday night.

“It stretches the court. Even the two times he even looked at the rim and created shot fakes, it opened up and anytime he puts it up you feel like you have a chance for the ball to go in,” said Dooley, “Obviously Jayden was terrific all around with 28 and 17 controlling the game. Seth had some good spurts also. There are a lot of things that we’ll be able to work on.”

The Pirates got off to a fairly good start in the first half. Twelve early Gardner points and nine from Williams on three of his first six three-point shot attempts had ECU up by nine points at 28-20. Then Iwin Ellis scored in the paint for Prairie View and a Darius Williams bomb and a Taishaun Johnson basket suddenly trimmed the ECU lead to one at 28-27 with 3:52 to go in the first half.

Tyler Singleton’s three-pointer from the top of the key tied the game at halftime and to give him seven first half points to lead Prairie View. Shawn Williams with eleven and Jayden Gardner’s ten points led the Pirates who shot a paltry 28 percent in the first half. The Panthers were effective in getting to the stripe fourteen times in the first twenty minutes and connecting on ten.

After ECU got off to a fast 14-4 run to open the second half on two layups apiece from Gardner and Fleming and another from K.J. Davis. Three straight Prairie View buckets got the Panthers back to within four at 45-41 with 12:34 to play before a three-point drive in the paint from Devonte Patterson cut the ECU lead to just one.

But ECU pulled away down the stretch and held an eleven point 72-61 lead at the in the last minute of the game on hitting six of eight field goals led by Jayden Gardner and Seth Leday down the stretch run of the contest.

PI POSTGAME: SHAWN WILLIAMS, JAYDEN GARDNER & COACH JOE DOOLEY

BOX SCORE & FINAL STATISTICS: ECU 76 PRAIRIE VIEW A&M 64

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