Tulane Women Battle Hard, but Fall to ECU, 65-61
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If you’re going to beat one of the best teams in the conference, you’ve got play one of your best games of the year. The Tulane women’s basketball team did just that for the first three-and-a-half quarters of play, but East Carolina pulled away enough to lead by double-digits with less than a minute left, as the Pirates took a hard-fought 65 - 61 victory over the Green Wave.
"I thought this was a better performance by us than our last game," Langford said, comparing this loss to the 32-point drubbing at the hands of South Florida this past weekend. "I thought we got off to a better start."
First Quarter: East Carolina 19 - Tulane 17
It was one of the more solid quarters of ball played by Tulane in a while, especially considering they were playing ECU, the 2nd place team in the American.
The Green Wave played solid defense in the initial 10-minutes of play. They only allowed the Pirates to get off 14-shots, as the Wave took care of defensive rebounding, not giving ECU any second chance points. Most importantly, TU owned the boards, getting 10 to East Carolina’s 5.
Mecailin Marshall led the Wave with eight points after the 1st, two of which came on a weaving, get-skinny drive on the baseline that turned into a banking layup against a pair of ECU six-footers. Kendall Sneed had four that included a pair of free throws.
First Half: Tulane 33 - East Carolina 32
Building on that first period, the Green Wave was able to take a five point lead at the 4:42 mark of the 2nd quarter. Tulane took their first lead of the second with 5:12 to go in the half on a three pointer by Jayda Brown. TU had gone on an 8-0 run to take the advantage.
The Greenies shot well from beyond the arc in the first half, making good on 5-of-their-9 three-pointers. Leading the way, freshman guard Marshall, hitting 2-of-3 from three-point land adding up to point total of 14. CC Mays was also good on 2-of-her-3 tres for a total of a half-dozen points.
The Wave continued to dominate the boards, leading after two periods, 19-12. Dyllan Hanna lead the way with a half-dozen. Kanija Daniel pulled down five.
Once again, it was the defensive rebounding that made the difference for Tulane. East Carolina seemed like they couldn’t find an offensive board, which led to the Pirates not getting one second chance point in the first half, while Tulane accumulated eight.
"I thought we did better on the boards than we did in the last few games," Langford shared with us afterwards.
Over and over again, the Green Wave pushed the ball up court and into the paint, causing ECU to be out of position defensively. The Pirates play a very physical brand of ball, and the fouls were being called on East Carolina in the first half. East Carolina built up 11 team fouls in the first twenty minutes to Tulane’s 5.
Third Quarter: East Carolina 48 - Tulane 46
Period number three saw the game flip back and forth a number of times, each team taking a lead a number of times, but most of those leads belonged to ECU, albeit by sometimes the slimmest of margins. The Tulane D once again did its job, forcing the Pirates to only hit 31% of their field goals in the third.
The difference on the scoreboard was the TU three-point line. Where the Green Wave was hitting it in the first half, Tulane couldn’t buy one in the third period, missing all five put up.
The East Carolina three-quarter-court press did not seem to rile Tulane as much as the Pirates would have liked. Though the wave had double-digits in turnovers by the end of 30-minutes, only five of those came in the third period.
Marshall continued her hot streak, piling up 22-points from the floor for the Wave. Hanna already was at the dozen mark in rebounds by this time.
Final Score: East Carolina 65 - Tulane 61
Though the Green Wave made it close at the end after a technical foul called on an ECU Pirate who complained about being called for a shooting foul, East Carolina was able to use their inside game and a more successful press to pull away from Tulane in the fourth quarter. The Green Wave turned over the ball a half-dozen times in the final period, most of those the result of the trapping pressure by East Carolina’s defense.
Marshall had a career-high 34-points for the game, going 11-of-20 from the field, including 4-for-10 from three-point land and 8-for-9 from the free throw line, the last two on the aforementioned technical foul. The frosh guard was the only Wave in double figures.
The Green Wave outrebounded ECU, 41-31. Hanna had the most with twelve. Amira Mabry had seven.
Tulane is currently playing with only ten players dressed out. Guards Jaylee Womack and Sadie Shores are out for the season with injuries while guard Kayla Hampton was out for the game. We asked Langford if her team could be getting tired at the end.
"You can't get tired in the 4th (quarter) if you want to win," she told us. "I'm not going to make an excuse. There's another gear inside to push through it. We're in shape. It's mental. You've got to mentally dig in and get those stops."
East Carolina improves to 18-7 for the season, 10-2 in the AAC, behind only unbeaten Rice. The loss by Tulane drops the Wave to 8-15 on the year, 3-8 in American Conference play. That places the Green Wave in sole possession of the 10th slot in the American standings. Only the top-10 teams in the league will go to the conference championships in Birmingham beginning March 10th.
"There are lessons to be learned (by this team), but we've got to go," Langford said after the game. "We're going to run out of time, and we're going to be sitting at home watching people play in the tournament. I think we're a good team, and we can get in (the tourney), but we've got to get there, and that's one game at a time."
The Green Wave hit the road for the Mardi Gras break, heading to Denton for a Saturday afternoon game against North Texas. Then, on Mardi Gras day, the first of two back-to-back games against Memphis. That Fat Tuesday matchup is at FedEx Arena, a make-up for the snowed out game on January 27th. The second is set for Thursday, February 19th at Fogelman arena versus the Tigers.
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.