Tulane Men Open Conference Play with Victory over ECU
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Tulane men's basketball (10-4, 1-0) earned its third consecutive victory on Wednesday afternoon as it defeated East Carolina (5-9, 0-1) 79-70 on the road to open American Conference competition. The Green Wave closed the contest with a 13-3 scoring run to secure the victory and start league play with a win for the third year in a row.
With the win, the Wave improved to 6-6 in conference openers since joining The American ahead of the 2014-15 season including a 4-3 mark under Head Coach Ron Hunter. The victory also snapped a seven-game losing streak for Tulane in Greenville, North Carolina, marking the first win for the Green Wave on the road over the Pirates since 2018.
Four players posted double figures in scoring for the Wave inside Minges Coliseum on Wednesday afternoon. The backcourt duo of Rowan Brumbaugh and Asher Woods led the way for Tulane each finishing with 19 points. Brumbaugh connected on 4-of-7 from the field including a pair of threes while also knocking down nine free throws. He also matched a career-high with seven rebounds to go with four assists. Woods filled out the rest of his stat sheet with five boards, four assists, and a pair of steals.
Scotty Middleton and Tyler Ringgold followed in the scoring column for the Green Wave each tallying 16 points against ECU. The performance for Middleton matched a career-best for the junior as he also tied his career-high with four made threes. Meanwhile, Ringgold added five rebounds, three assists, and two blocks in the contest.
In a game that saw 16 lead changes and 13 ties it was Tulane that put the first points on the board on a pull-up jumper by Curtis Williams Jr. ECU answered with the next four for the first of six lead changes over the first seven minutes of the contest.
The Wave built its largest advantage of the opening frame with a 9-2 scoring run to take a 22-15 lead with 11:40 on the clock. The Pirates chipped away to pull back within one point before the Green Wave matched its largest lead a pair of times including 32-25 with 4:55 to play. However, Tulane would not hold off ECU in the closing minutes of the half as the Pirates closed on a 14-5 run to put the Wave behind 39-37 at the break.
Tulane and ECU went back-and-forth exchanging buckets over the first several minutes of the second half. With 13:52 remaining in the contest the Green Wave faced its largest deficit of the day trailing 53-47.
Six-straight points by Woods quickly tied the game at 53-53 before the two teams began trading baskets again. The Wave and the Pirates exchanged the lead four times over the next few minutes until Tulane rattled off four-straight points to pull in front 70-67 with just over four minutes remaining.
During the closing minutes of the contest the Green Wave continued to string together stops on the defensive end while slowly extending its advantage on offense. Middleton delivered the dagger with three-pointer with 1:19 to play that sparked Tulane to score the final six points of the game and secure the victory 79-70.
Next, the Green Wave will return to Uptown to host Florida Atlantic in its conference home-opener on Sunday, January 4. The game between Tulane and the Owls is scheduled to tipoff at 12 p.m. on ESPN2.
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.