GREENVILLE, N.C. – The Prairie View A&M men's basketball team will play its second straight game on the East Coast with a Wednesday game at East Carolina.
The 6 p.m. CT game can be viewed online free of charge, as well as live stats accessed, via pvpanthers.com
Monday night, the Panthers led for more than 34 minutes at UNC-Greensboro, and had a pair of 12-point leads, but were unable to make a field goal in the final five plus minutes in a 74-66 loss.
Gary Blackston led four Panthers in double figures with 18 points.
Darius Williams came off the bench to score 15, and
Taishaun Johnson (five rebounds) and
Devonte Patterson (six rebounds) each scored 11 points.
"I was again pleased with our approach," said PVAMU head coach
Byron Smith. "We were very well prepared, and executed the game plan as best as we possibly could. I felt really good about that. We shot the three-pointer extremely well (9-of-18), and we had been shooting it horribly (5-for-35 in the previous two games). I thought our field goal percentage was pretty good (43.1 percent). I thought it was a great effort for about 36 minutes. We got beat on the boards a little bit (37-28), but we battled. We're getting in position to win games. We just have to get to the point where we can finish. No moral victories, but I was pleased with how we played."
East Carolina (3-2) is coming off a 69-64 home win over Texas Rio Grande Valley as the round robin season-opening MTE Event continues. ECU beat Lamar in overtime and has lost at Georgia Tech. Jayden Gardner (14.0 ppg) has lead the Pirates in scoring in each of the last three games, while Seth Leday (14.0 ppg) has led the team in scoring twice and in rebounding three times (7.2 rpg) in coming off the bench in four of the first five games.
"They have a first-year coach (of the program), a very good coach in Joe Dooley (formerly at Florida Gulf Coast)," Smith said. "He's been a former assistant at Kansas when they won the national title in 2008, so he's very well respected, and is going to build the ECU program. They are really good, and they are athletic. They play the right way, and they play a lot like UNC Greensboro. They want to play fast. They want to play up tempo. They can drive the ball, they can shoot the ball, and they have good size. We have our hands full again tomorrow night, but I like our chances."
