El Paso, TX (SportsNetwork.com) – Brandan Walton netted 17 points and hit 4- of-12 from 3-point range as the 10th-seeded North Texas Mean Green barely edged the 15th-seeded Rice Owls, 63-62, in an overtime contest in the first round of the Conference USA Tournament at Don Haskins Center.<\/p>\n
A pair of Chris Jones free throws with 11 seconds left in the overtime period gave North Texas (16-15) the one-point advantage, which would hold up as the final. Colin Voss scored 16 points with nine rebounds, and Jordan Williams tallied a double-double with 11 points and 14 boards for the Mean Green, who advance to play seventh-seeded Tulane on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Austin Ramljak notched 17 points and five rebounds for Rice (7-23), which has lost eight straight games. Sean Obi netted 12 points with nine rebounds, and Seth Gearhart contributed 11 in the defeat.<\/p>\n
Rice shot 40 percent from the floor in the first half, and hit 5-of-11 from 3- point range to help the Owls take a 30-21 halftime advantage over North Texas. The Mean Green connected on 34.8 percent of their shots in the frame, and missed all six 3-point tries.<\/p>\n
The Owls slipped down to 28.6 percent shooting in the second half, but did connect on 10-of-17 from the free-throw line. North Texas was able to catch up to Rice thanks to 35.7 percent shooting in the period, and 12-of-15 from the charity stripe. Jones’ heroics weren’t just confined to the overtime period. With 23 seconds left to play in regulation, Jones netted a pair of free throws to knot the game at 56-56. A missed jumper from Rice with three seconds left wouldn’t fall, and the game went into the extra period.<\/p>\n
The overtime was a tight match, and the Mean Green hit just 1-of-5 from the floor in the additional five minutes. But North Texas was able to sink 4-of-4 from the charity stripe, including Jones’ two game-winning free throws.<\/p>\n
The Mean Green outscored Rice from the foul line, 21-14, and had the edge in rebounding, 45-38. The Owls outscored North Texas from 3-point range, 30-12.<\/p>\n
Final Score: Marshall 63, FAU 59<\/p>\n
El Paso, TX (SportsNetwork.com) – Chris Thomas scored 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds as the 14th-seeded Marshall Thundering Herd narrowly edged out the 11th-seeded Florida Atlantic Owls, 63-59, in the first round of the Conference USA Tournament at Don Haskins Center.<\/p>\n
Kareem Canty netted 12 points for Marshall (11-21), which will move on to face sixth-seeded Old Dominion in the second round of the C-USA Tournament on Wednesday. Ryan Taylor added eight points and pulled down a team-high nine rebounds in the win.<\/p>\n
Marquan Botley scored a game-high 26 points, connecting on 5-of-9 from 3-point range for FAU (10-22), while Pablo Bertone chipped in 21 points but turned the ball over six times in the defeat. Kelvin Penn grabbed a team-high eight rebounds for the Owls.<\/p>\n
Marshall connected on 40 percent of its field goal attempts in the first half, including 3-of-12 from 3-point range, and took a 35-29 lead into the intermission. FAU shot 47.6 percent from the floor, but made four fewer attempts than Marshall in the frame.<\/p>\n
The Herd dropped their shooting accuracy down to 35.7 percent in the second half, adding just 2-of-8 from 3-point distance. The Owls hit 37.5 percent from the floor, and went 10-of-14 from the free-throw line, but could only shave off two points from Marshall’s first-half lead.<\/p>\n
Marshall had the advantage in points in the paint, 24-14, and in bench points, 17-4.<\/p>\n
Final Score: East Carolina 79, UTSA 76<\/p>\n
El Paso, TX (SportsNetwork.com) – Akeem Richmond netted 36 points and buried a league-record 11 3-pointers to lead his 12th-seeded East Carolina Pirates past the 13th-seeded Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners, 79-76, in a Conference USA Tournament first-round matchup at the Don Haskins Center.<\/p>\n
All of Richmond’s field goals were from 3-point distance, as the guard connected on 3-of-4 from the free-throw line to round out his scoring. Paris Campbell chipped in 20 points for the Pirates (17-15), who overcame an 18-point deficit in the first half to take the lead in the second period. East Carolina advances to the second round of the C-USA Tournament to take on fifth-seeded Texas-El Paso on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Devon Agusi scored 21 points to pace UTSA (8-22), while Jordan Sims contributed 12 points and seven rebounds. Phillip Jones netted 11 points, grabbed a team-high eight rebounds and dished out five assists, and Edrico McGregor scored 11 points of his own. Keon Lewis rounded out the double-digit scorers for the Roadrunners with 10 points in the loss.<\/p>\n
UTSA shot an impressive 65.4 percent from the floor in the first half, hitting 6-of-10 from 3-point range and taking a 47-38 lead into the intermission. East Carolina connected on 44 percent of its field goal tries in the frame, and made 7-of-16 from deep.<\/p>\n
The Pirates mounted a furious second-half comeback on 55 percent shooting from the field, hitting 7-of-13 from distance and 12-of-20 from the charity stripe. The Roadrunners went bitterly cold, netting just 30.8 percent of their attempts in the period, allowing ECU to take control and steal away the lead.<\/p>\n
East Carolina outscored UTSA from the free-throw line, 21-14, and from 3-point range, 42-36. The Roadrunners had the edge in points in the paint, 22-10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
El Paso, TX (SportsNetwork.com) – Brandan Walton netted 17 points and hit 4- of-12 from 3-point range as the 10th-seeded North Texas Mean Green barely edged the 15th-seeded Rice Owls, 63-62, in an overtime contest in the first round of the Conference USA Tournament at Don Haskins Center. A pair of Chris Jones free throws […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ncaa-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15843,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15833\/revisions\/15843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}