Junior Etou's 23 Points Sink Pirates
TULSA - ECU had Junior Etou in check for the first twenty minutes. Then he went off and scored twenty of his game high 23 points in the second half to propel Tulsa to a 74-66 victory over East Carolina in AAC play on Sunday afternoon in Reynolds Center.
Etou hit seven of eight of his shots from the floor including 4 of 5 from long range and 5 of 6 from the stripe to go along with five boards to lead the Golden Hurricane attack. Corey Henderson tossed in 14, Sterling Taplin had 13 to go along with nine assists and Martins Igbanu added ten points and eight boards for Tulsa.
“We knew he was going to be key going into the game. He had 31 or 33 at our place. That was close to if not his career high and he was a major concern of ours, said acting ECU head coach Michael Perry of Junior Etou, “We tried to go at him defensively and try to take him out of the game somewhat offensively in the first half and we had some success. He picked up two fouls and only played seven minutes in the first half. We were very encouraged.”
"He went one of two in the first half and we knew he would be attacking with some aggression in the second half and that’s what happened,” Perry said, "It’s been a difficult position for us to guard and we’ve just got to get better at it."
Caleb White scored 20 points for the Pirates to go along with 19 points from Kentrell Barkley. Deng Riak added ten rebounds for East Carolina but in the end ECU hit just 8 of 22 from three-point land while Tulsa connected on 12 of 22 and in the end that proved to be the margin of victory.
Caleb White became the fifth player in school history to score 1500 career points and now ranks fourth on the school's all-time scoring list with 1517 points.
ECU took an early 12-7 lead, five points of which came from Kentrell Barkley. Corey Henrickson’s three-pointer along with treys from Sterling Taplin and Geno Artison quickly made it 16-12 Tulsa with eleven minutes to play in the first period.
Barkley tied the game at 19-19 with just under eight minutes left in the half before Tulsa took a two-point 29-27 lead at the intermission behind eleven points from Corey Henderson and eight from Sterling Taplin.
ECU was led by Kentrell Barkley’s ten first half points, nine points from Caleb White and seven rebounds from Deng Riak.
But Tulsa built a five-point 45-40 lead seven minutes into the second period when Sterling Taplin rebounded his own miss, scored and was fouled by Elijah Hughes.
Junior Etou’s twelfth second half point on a basket in the lane and T.K. Edogi’s second basket of the period gave Tulsa an ten-point 57-47 lead. Then Etou nailed a pair of free throws, two three-pointers while Corey Henderson's trey kept the Golden Hurricane up by ten with 2:47 to play.
Tulsa held on down the stretch to take an eight-point win. In doing so, they likely improved their AAC tournament seeding and evened their overall record at 14-14 and 8-8 in conference play. With the loss, East Carolina falls to 13-16 and 5-11 in AAC play.
