ECU basketball recap: Herd Holds Off Pirates In Huntington, 56-52

Markel Humphrey leads Marshall with 17 points

CUSA Fans ECU Correspondent Thomas "Bubba" Rosenbaum brings you a recap of the basketball game between East Carolina and Marshall.

It wasn’t a thing of beauty by any means, but Ron Jirsa and his Thundering Herd will take it. Marshall used a solid defensive effort to outlast East Carolina, 56-52, on Wednesday night in front of 3,347 at the Cam Henderson Center in Huntington, WV.

With the victory, Marshall improved to 8-13 overall and 3-4 in Conference USA. The loss, which was the Pirates 14th in their last 15 games, dropped them to 5-15 and 0-7 in league play. Ironically, their last victory in CUSA came last February when they defeated the Thundering Herd in Greenville.

East Carolina trailed the majority of the night, but it did take a 9-7 lead a little over six minutes into the game when Jeremy Ingram knocked down a three-pointer from the corner.

However, Marshall went on an 8-0 run over the next three minutes and led 15-9 with 10:51 remaining in the first half. The Thundering Herd would not trail again.

The Pirates John Fields connected on one of his two free throw attempts with 8:58 left before the break, capping a 6-0 run to knot the game at 15.

ECU would only score two more points the rest of the half, as it endured one of its all too familiar droughts. The Pirates were averaging a measly 22.4 points in the first half over the last seven contests and they fell well short of that average in this one. They found themselves only down six at the break despite finishing the first half a miserable 20.7 percent (6-of-29) from the floor, committing 11 turnovers and scoring a Cam Henderson Center low 17-first half points. All this came against a Marshall team that entered the game with the worst field goal percentage defense in the conference.

Fortunately for Ricky Stokes’ club, they defended and rebounded well in the initial half. The Pirates limited the Herd to a 34.8 percent (8-of-23) shooting performance.

East Carolina’s woeful shooting continued as the second half began, as the Pirates missed its first six shots.

MU extended its lead to a game-high ten points when Cincinnati-native Mark Dorris drained a three to make it 27-17 with 18:43 to play.

Courtney Captain’s fifth three of the night capped a 10-1 ECU run that narrowed the margin to 28-27 with just under 13 minutes remaining. He finished with a game-high 18 points, but was held without a field goal for the remainder of the game.

The Pirates still managed to pull even a couple times—the last at the 4:09 mark when a Darrell Jenkins lay-up concluded an 11-4 run.

Marshall took the lead for good with 3:41 to play when Mark Dorris rebounded Markel Humphrey’s miss and connected on his subsequent three-pointer.

Down by four with just less than a minute to play and the shot clock winding down, East Carolina opted to try and get the stop rather than putting the Herd at the line in a 1-1 situation. Marshall’s Chris Ross, who had been sidelined by a knee injury, stuck the final dagger in the Pirates’ heart when he sunk only his ninth three-pointer of the season.

Markel Humphrey led Marshall in scoring, finishing with 17 points in 33 minutes. He also pulled down seven rebounds and swatted three shots. The only other Herd player that reached double figures was Mark Dorris, who tallied 12 points in the contest. Tre Whitted, who hails from Wilmington, NC, scored 8—all of which were from the charity stripe.

Courtney Captain, East Carolina’s lone senior, totaled 18 points while also grabbing 8 boards. He connected on 4-of-11 attempts from long range and continues to provide leadership to his struggling team.

“We want to continue giving him our best each and every day, each and every night,” said Stokes, when asked during the postgame about Captain being the squad’s only senior.

Darrell Jenkins and Cory Farmer also reached double figures for ECU, finishing with 13 and 10 points, respectively. Jenkins, who has led the team in assists in every game this year, did so again—dishing out eight on the night. He did commit five turnovers, though.

Both teams followed up their lackluster first half play by improving in nearly every facet of the game after the break. The bottomline is that despite being outrebounded 44-31 (including 23-9 on the offensive glass) in the game, Marshall found a way to get the offensive rebounds and make the clutch shots down the stretch. The Thundering Herd also blocked an eye opening 10 shots on the night.

The Pirates were much more efficient running their offense the last 15 minutes of the game, but their struggles the first 25 were too much to overcome. After starting the game a horrendous 6-of-35 (17.1%), ECU made good on 11 of its last 24 attempts. This improvement was also seen from the free throw line, as they knocked down 9-of-10 in the second half after making only 1-of-6 before the break.

“I felt we grew up a little bit in the second half. We finally executed offensively, “ East Carolina head coach Ricky Stokes said.

“I like this team—they’ve been coachable and they’ve continued to work hard. We had what was probably our best practice on Tuesday.”

Darrell Jenkins must continue to demonstrate the ability to control the tempo by bringing the ball back out and setting up the offense the way he did in the second half.

Additionally, the Pirates absolutely must get more production from their frontcourt. The trio of John Fields, Gabe Blair and Justin Ramsey combined for only 3 points on the evening while Fields fouled out in only 15 minutes of action.