East Carolina got all they wanted and more from North Florida before finally putting the game away late for a 73-67 win Thursday night in Williams Arena.
Jayden Gardner led the Pirates with twenty points to surpass the 1,200 point mark. In doing so, Gardner becomes the fastest to do so. He got plenty of help with 16 from J.J. Miles, 10 from Brandon Suggs and Noah Farrakhan added nine. Tristen Newton led on the glass with eight rebounds.
“It was hard out there tonight for multiple reasons. They are a very good team,” Gardner told PirateIllustrated.com afterward, “They’ve played Florida State, Miami, N.C. State so they come into ECU thinking they’re just playing another team so they have the experience.”
The victory gave ECU their first 5-0 start since since the 2012-13 season and just the third time in modern history while the surprisingly good Ospreys fell to 0-7 with the loss.
“There were a couple of spurts where we did some really good things. There were a couple of spurts we didn’t pay attention to the scouting report or do some of the things we wanted to do offensively,” said ECU head coach Joe Dooley.
“Those spurts were too long and the spurts where we played like we were capable were too short. We need to get that corrected quickly. We did make some plays at the end. We’ve got some things to corrected tomorrow and Saturday to get ready for SMU on Wednesday.”
Josh Endicott and Ryan Burkhardt got off to fast starts with six quick points in the first nine minutes of the game and North Florida took a 22-13 lead over the Pirates.
A 17-6 run from ECU tied the game at 30-30 with four minutes left in the half on four free throws from Tristen Newton along with baskets from Jayden Gardner, Noah Farrakhan and Brandon Suggs.
The Pirates were up by two in a 40-38 contest at intermission on 43 percent first half shooting. Jayden Gardner led ECU with twelve first half points along with six points each from Brandon Suggs and Tristen Newton. Emmanuel Adedoyin had seven points at halftime to lead the Ospreys along with seven rebounds from Jonathan Aybar.
ECU’s lead then grew to as much as eight in the first ten minutes of the second half. A three-pointer from Burkhardt got North Florida back to within three at the eleven minute mark and again at 61-58 with 7:57 remaining on a Noah Farrakhan fast break floater in the lane.
The Ospreys wouldn’t go away and tied the game at 61-61 with 4:53 to play on a pair of Burkhardt treys before taking the lead on a Dorian James drive one minute later. North Florida maintained a two point 65-63 lead with 1:30 to go on a Adedoyin drive.
But a missed North Florida one and one opportunity from Aybar was followed by two Gardner free throws at the other end of the floor. Then when the Ospreys were unable to score on the subsequent possession, Brandon Suggs put the game on ice with a pair of free throws with 14 seconds to play that extended the ECU lead to five at 72-67 in a 12-6 run down the stretch.
“Our team showed a lot of toughness and a lot of resilience even though we were struggling defensively tonight,” Suggs said, “We were able to get enough stops at the end of the game to pull through.”
East Carolina gets a bit of a break this weekend to rest up before traveling to Dallas to play their first AAC game of the season next Wednesday night when the Pirates take on SMU at 8 p.m. on ESPN+.
