East Carolina @ Tulane preview

Last Meeting ( Jan 31, 2019 ) Tulane 65, East Carolina 66

East Carolina tries to snap a five-game losing streak when it visits Tulane on Saturday for an American Athletic Conference contest. The Pirates have lost two of their last three contests in overtime, including a 77-73 setback to Tulsa on Sunday after rallying from 17 points down to force the extra period, while the Green Wave are still looking for their first conference victory and have dropped 15 straight overall.

Freshman forward Jayden Gardner (17.5 points, 8.9 rebounds) leads ECU in scoring and rebounding and had 15 points and nine rebounds in the Pirates' one-point victory over Tulane at the end of January. Sophomore guard Shawn Williams contributes 11.9 points and is coming off a season-high 26 points against Tulsa, including a career-best eight 3-pointers. Sophomore guard Caleb Daniels leads the Green Wave attack, averaging 15.8 points and dishing out 3.2 assists and is coming off a career-best 25-point performance in Tulane's loss to Memphis on Wednesday. Samir Sehic, a 6-9 junior forward averaging 11.2 points and 7.7 rebounds, is looking for a big game against the smaller ECU front line, though he managed only five points in the teams' previous meeting this season.

TV: 8 p.m. ET, ESPNU

ABOUT ECU (9-16, 2-11 American): As coach Joe Dooley tries to build the program, the depth - or lack of depth - of the Pirates has been a bit of a problem. In the team's 77-73 overtime loss to Tulsa, ECU was outscored in bench points 33-2 and there is a large drop-off from the team's top five scorers - Gardner, Williams, Seth LeDay, K.J. Davis and Isaac Fleming - who each score between 8.2 and 17.5 points per game and the rest of the squad, which is led by Tyler Foster's 4.8-point average. The team's offensive production of 67 points per game is next-to-last in the American, ahead of only Tulane, and many around the program feel the wins will start to come more often when the team is able to get production throughout its rotation.

ABOUT TULANE (4-21, 0-13): Most coaches of four-win teams spend the late stages of the season worried about their job status, but Mike Dunleavy Sr. has received a public show of confidence by athletic director Troy Dannen and is already looking to the future. Dunleavy is hoping this season's squad can break their winless conference streak before the end of the season, though he knows that injuries have been a big part of the problem, with guard Ray Ona Embo and big men Bul Ajang and Buay Koka missing significant time with injuries. Dunleavy has seen this season as a building block for the future, though he's very happy with freshmen Connor Crabtree (5.8 points) and Kevin Zhang (7.0), who have responded to being thrust into starting roles sooner than expected.

TIP-INS

1. Gardner is the only player in the American to rank among the league's top 10 in scoring and rebounding, and is one of only four players in the conference in the top 10 in rebounding and field-goal percentage (50.5 percent).

2. Tulane senior G Jordan Cornish notched a career-high 10 assists Wednesday.

3. East Carolina has won 10 of the last 14 meetings, including five straight at Tulane's Devlin Fieldhouse, though the last four encounters have been decided by three points or fewer.

PREDICTION: East Carolina 70, Tulane 62