Lamar sports information

GREENVILLE, N.C. — Leading for all but about 20 seconds of regulation, the men’s basketball team of Lamar (1-2) came up just short of taking down East Carolina (2-1) Sunday in the Williams Arena. Big Red fell in overtime to the Pirates, 84-78.

“We played a tough game, and there were some things that didn’t go our way, but at the end of the day you have to execute and make defensive stops down the stretch. We didn’t do that today,” said head coach Tic Price. “ECU capitalized on possessions that we gave them on second shots, and blown assignments on defense hurt us. We’re still growing, and we’re trying to learn how to wrestle victory from the jaws of defeat. I’m proud of our effort though. We did a lot of things better than our game at Georgia Tech, but it just wasn’t enough today.”

An extremely balanced offensive attack led to five Cards in double digits, including Josh Nzeakor and V.J. Holmes, who both had 15 points, T.J. Atwood with 13, and Michael Kolawole and Nick Garth who both had 12. Kolawole finished the evening with a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds while also forcing three turnovers, and Nzeakor pulled down another seven off the glass while swatting two shots.

Carrying over its momentum from a big second half at Georgia Tech, Lamar’s offense was firing on all cylinders in the opening 20 minutes. The Cards won the tip and fed the ball to Josh Nzeakor, who immediately put it away with a demonstrative dunk. ECU responded and took a 3-2 lead on an and-1 free throw, but LU continued to make shot after shot in the paint. The Cards’ lead grew to four points, 13-9, when V.J. Holmes completed his own and-1 free throw out of a Pirate timeout with 15:31 left in the period.

ECU continued to attempt to chip away at Big Red’s lead with shots from beyond the arc, but neither the Pirates nor the Cards could find the bottom of the net past the three-point line for the first seven minutes of the game. Kolawole broke that streak with a three-ball that put Lamar up 18-14 with 11:38 left, but a 5-0 run by the Pirates gave ECU its final lead of the half, 19-18, with 10:20 to go.

A quick substitution cut that streak and Lamar went to work. After a jumper from Kolawole put Lamar back out front the Cards outscored ECU 8-2, stretching their lead to as much as 10, 31-21, with 5:56 to go. The Pirates would chip that lead down to four points twice, but at the half LU remained out front by six, 35-29.

Neither team clicked immediately out of the halftime locker room with three missed shots and two turnovers in the first five possessions, and ECU struck first with a two-point jumper, pulling within four. Atwood again jumpstarted the Cardinal offense in the second half by scoring the first five points for Lamar. The Cardinal defense buckled down over the next 2 1/2 minutes, allowing no ECU buckets while nailing shots in the paint. The Cards again grew their lead to as much as 10, 54-44, with just over 10 minutes remaining.

Despite the 10-point margin and a somewhat subdued Pirate fanbase, ECU continued to play pesky and remained in striking distance, closing the gap to within six points over the next three minutes. Lamar answered with a 4-0 streak of its own to push the lead back out to 10, 63-53, only for ECU to pull within six again with 5:48 left. Consecutive free throws from Kolawole stretched the lead to seven with just 4 minutes to go, and it appeared that could be the first nail in the coffin for the Pirates, but Atwood fouled out on the next possession and ECU came down the floor and hit just its sixth three-pointer in 24 attempts to pull within four, 66-62. Edwin Jeudy and Holmes nailed jumpers in the paint to push that lead back out to six, 70-64, with about 2 minutes left, but ECU closed out the game with a 7-1 run, tying the game at 71-71 on a tip-in layup.

After ECU sprinted out to a 77-74 lead 2 minutes into the extra period, free throws from Nzeakor and a three-pointer from Jeudy gave Lamar its only lead of overtime, 78-77, with 1:45 left on the clock. The Pirates tied up the game at 78 apiece on the front end of two free throws, and a rebound on the missed second free throw was converted into a two-point lead for ECU, 80-78, with 1:23 to go. Lamar switched to fouling to try to preserve as much clock as possible but the Pirates nailed all four of their free throws down the stretch while Lamar had two contested threes just barely miss.

The Cardinals return to Beaumont on Saturday for the first of two games at home. Lamar will host Prairie View A&M on Nov. 17 and Arlington Baptist on Nov. 19 before hitting the road to play UTRGV on Black Friday, Nov. 23. Four more road games will take place from Nov. 27 through Dec. 13 before Lamar comes home to the Montagne Center on Dec. 19, hosting Texas Southern.

Tip-ins

• Neither team shot well from beyond the arc throughout the game — the Cards and Pirates combined for a 9-of-40 performance from three-point land
• Nzeakor, Holmes, Kolawole, and Garth played a marathon of a game. The Cardinal quadruple logged a combined 164 of LU’s 225 total minutes.