Jan. 10, 2009

Box Score

CBS College Sports Highlights

East Carolina at Marshall Game Book

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - Marshall forward Tyler Wilkerson (Lexington, Ky.) recorded his fourth double-double of the season with game-highs in points (24) and rebounds (10), helping the Thundering Herd to a dominating 31-14 edge on the boards, en route to a 72-64 victory over East Carolina in Conference USA men's basketball action at the Cam Henderson Center on Saturday.

Wilkerson, a junior, went 7-for-10 from the floor and 10-for-12 from the free-throw line and added two assists and two steals with his 24 points setting a new team season-high. In his last two games against East Carolina (9-6, 1-1 C-USA), Wilkerson has gone 19-for-23 from the field for an 82.6 percent clip.

The two clubs played to a 33-33 tie at halftime. East Carolina came out of the break on fire, using a pair of Jamar Abrams 3-pointers to grab its biggest lead of the game at eight points two-and-a-half minutes into the second stanza. After a pair of Markel Humphrey (Atlanta, Ga.) free throws and a Wilkerson layup, the Pirates regained their eight-point lead thanks to back-to-back dunks off of Brock Young feeds.

Young, the nation's leader in assists, threw a no-look pass threw traffic to Darrius Morrow and followed with a highlight-reel alley-oop dish to Abrams. The deafening dunks, however, seemed to wake up the Herd (8-7, 1-1) as it went on an 11-2 run to claim its first second-half lead, 48-47, three minutes later.

The Herd jumped back ahead as Wilkerson cleaned up a Darryl Merthie (Sanford, Fla.) miss with an offensive rebound and putback to regain the lead for Marshall.

The Herd's Dago Pena (Punta Gorda, Fla.) was instrumental during the MU rally. The guard/forward came up with a steal and layup plus a foul at the 13:32 mark in what was the freshman's breakout game of his career. Pena came off the bench for career-highs in points (14) and rebounds (5) on 5-of-6 shooting with a 3-for-3 mark from 3-point range.

The game saw five ties and four lead changes as MU upped its all-time record to 6-0 at home versus East Carolina while winning its first conference home-opener in five seasons.

ECU forced a 51-51 tie at the 10-minute mark and jumped out to a five-point lead after a James Legan trey and an Abrams layup. The Herd surged ahead moments later and never relinquished its lead with a Wilkerson 15-foot jumper followed by a fast-break dunk by freshman Shaquille Johnson (Jacksonville, Fla.) - off a rebound and long outlet pass by Wilkerson for a 59-56 MU lead.

The Marshall advantage reached 10 points with 3:11 remaining on Pena's final trey of the night, but ECU cut its deficit to three points with 56.9 seconds left on a Morrow free throw. The Herd went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line down the stretch to secure its first C-USA victory of the season.

"The thing I kept telling my basketball team, coming into today, was we're getting better and it's going to show up eventually on the court," Marshall head coach Donnie Jones said. "Going into halftime I knew we were playing a really good East Carolina team. We had seven or eight stops down the stretch (in the second half) which I thought was really important for us.

"Tyler Wilkerson has continued to build each game on his success. I'm really proud of Markel Humphrey. He came in strong and, even though his numbers don't seem big, his defense and his leadership on the court today were outstanding."

Humphrey, who has been battling a foot injury but returned to the starting lineup after coming off the bench at Memphis on Wednesday, played one of his finest games of the season. The Herd's lone four-year senior netted 11 points with six rebounds and an assist in 36 minutes.

Johnson added nine points off the bench for the Herd while sophomore Tirrell Baines (Laurens, S.C.) and freshman Damier Pitts (Charlotte, N.C.) scored six apiece. Redshirt junior guard Chris Lutz dished out three assists with a steal in 18 minutes.

Legan scored a team-high 16 points for Mack McCarthy's Pirate squad and Sam Hinnant registered 14 points. ECU posted 17 assists on its 22 field goals as Young dished out a game-high seven assists while chipping in six points.

"This win was huge," Wilkerson said. "We lost two in a row and we came back into practice and worked real hard. We came into today knowing this was a big game for us; it's a conference game and it was time for us to get a win."

Marshall's dominance on the boards led to a 13-2 edge in second-chance points, but the Herd's season-worst 19 turnovers led to a 23-13 deficit in points off turnovers. MU was once again solid from the free-throw line, sinking 88 percent of its attempts (22-for-25).

ECU went 6-for-10 from 3-point range in the first half, but hit just 4-of-13 attempts in the second half.

Marshall's next contest is the annual Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic versus intrastate rival West Virginia on Wednesday at the Charleston Civic Center.