Tulane Green Wave Basketball Needs To Handle Business Against East Carolina Pirates

The Tulane Green Wave men's basketball team would save themselves a lot of potential headaches defeating the East Carolina Pirates.

Feb 23, 2025; Wichita, Kansas, USA; Tulane Green Wave forward Kaleb Banks (1) rebounds during the first half against the Wichita State Shockers at Charles Koch Arena. | William Purnell-Imagn Images

Expectations weren’t very high for the Tulane Green Wave men’s basketball team coming into the 2024-25 season.

The team finished in a tie for last place in the American Athletic Conference last year, winning only five games. Nearly an entirely new roster was in place for this campaign and no one knew what to expect from the group lacking experience.

There are zero seniors on the team and only a handful of players had even been members of a rotation at the Division I level previously.

It was going to assuredly lead to some bumps in the road, such as a five-game losing in the middle of their non-conference schedule, losing seven out of nine games in that stretch.

With a 6-7 record heading into AAC play, with two of those wins against non-D1 teams, it looked as if another tough season was on the horizon.

But, the Green Wave got off to a good start, winning their first two games. They have handled late-game pressure a lot better than earlier in the season, avoiding consecutive losses to this point in conference play.

That has resulted in the team being 11-5, more than doubling their win total from the year before, with two games remaining in the regular season.

There is a lot on the line when they face the East Carolina Pirates on Thursday night, as Tulane could wrap up a top-four seed in the AAC tournament.

A top-four seed would mean a double-bye right into the quarterfinals and needing only three wins in three days to take home the title.

To ensure they lock into one of those double-byes, they have to handle business on the road Thursday evening.

East Carolina is the only team still alive who can move up; the Florida Atlantic Owls are also 9-7 in conference, but because of their head-to-head victory that the Green Wave has over them, they own the tiebreaker.

A win against the Pirates would also take all of the pressure off the team for their regular season finale against the UAB Blazers over the weekend.

That would be an ideal scenario for Tulane, as UAB already has a victory over the Green Wave earlier this season.

A loss would open up an unnecessary can of worms that head coach Ron Hunter and his squad would prefer to not have to worry about.

Handling business in Greenville would be a huge accomplishment and complete a remarkable turnaround.