UNC-W Tops East Carolina 81-71
WILMINGTON, N.C. - Denzel Ingram tossed in 26 and C.J. Bryce had 25 as UNC-Wilmington had little difficulty picking up their eleventh win against just one loss in a 81-71 victory over East Carolina Tuesday night in sold out Trask Coliseum. Chris Flemmings added 12 for the Seahawks in the victory.
The Pirates got 17 points from B.J. Tyson and twelve from Caleb White, mostly in the second half. Jeremy Sheppard and Elijah Hughes also scored twelve points, but it was too little and too late to matter in a contest where the Seahawks never trailed.
“The second half I thought we did some nice things. We had to go small in the second half where we shot 64 percent,” ECU head coach Jeff Lebo said after his team fell to 7-5 on the season, “We then scored the ball the best we have all year long. The problem is when we’re small when we go to the other end it’s not one of our best defensive or rebounding teams."
Denzel Ingram and Devontae Cacok buckets got Wilmington off to a fast 5-0 start before buckets from Caleb White and Michel Nzege helped ECU cut the lead to one at 9-8.
A myriad of missed ECU shots coupled with a pair ot CJ Bryce jumpers and two Bryce free throws extended the Wilmington cushion to seven at 19-10 midway through the first half. Then treys from Chris Flemmings and Denzel Ingram fueled a 13-0 run as the Seahawks took a 25-10 lead.
Two Jeremy Sheppard baskets, a three-pointer from Elljah Hughes and a B.J. Tyson left-hand drive cut the Wilmington lead to 29-19 with just under four minutes to play in the first half.The two teams traded baskets down the stretch in a 35-25 game at intermission.
The Pirates’ two top scorers, Caleb White and B.J. Tyson continued their mysterious stretch of cold shooting in the first half, going a combined 2 for 9 from the field. Meanwhile, the Pirates hit just 29 percent of their shots in the first period including just one for seven from three-point range to go along with nine turnovers.
Bryce, Flemmings, and Mosley got into the act in the first five minutes of the second half as the Seahawk lead grew to fifteen at 51-36.
ECU managed to cut the Wilmington lead to nine before Bryce connected and Denzel Ingram added three straight jumpers to stretch the Wilmington lead to 79-63 as the Seahawks held on in the end for the victory.
