George Mason holds on for 77-71 win over ECU

GREENVILLE - East Carolina's men's basketball team often lives by the 3-pointer.

Saturday afternoon, the Pirates died by it.

Louis Birdsong and Andre Cornelius scored 19 points each, and George Mason made 11-of-24 from long range in a tense 77-71 win over the Pirates at Minges Coliseum.

The loss, ECU's first of the season, came despite 27 points from Pirates guard Sam Hinnant, including six 3-pointers of his own.

"It was like the gunfight at O.K. Corral," said Patriots coach Jim Larranaga, who took his team on a storied run to the Final Four three seasons ago. "And fortunately for us, we had more bullets than they did down the stretch."

George Mason (3-1) put the game away when guard John Vaughan rebounded his own free throw miss, was immediately fouled again and made both ends of a 1-and-1 to give the Patriots a 75-71 lead with 14 seconds left.

Hinnant's last-ditch 3-point try bounded off the back of the rim with 8 seconds remaining, and with it went the Pirates' chances of upsetting the defending Colonial Athletic Association champions for a second straight season.

George Mason entered the game shooting just 27 percent from 3-point range. In Saturday's back-and-forth first half, the Patriots made 8-of-13, a blistering 61.5 percent.

"It was very frustrating," Hinnant said, referring to the Pirates' inability to pull away.

"Every time we felt like we were getting a little lead on them, they'd come down and make a 3."

ECU (3-1) trailed by as many as seven poiints midway through the second half but climbed back into it with a quick 8-0 run consisting of two Hinnant 3s and a Darrius Morrow tip-in.

From there, it was anybody's ballgame.

"Down the stretch, they played like they were used to winning," ECU coach Mack McCarthy said of the Patriots, adding that it was part of his game plan to clog the lane and force the outside shot. "They shot the ball so much better tonight than they had been shooting it.

"Some nights they make them, some nights they don't."

No one was hotter than Cornelius, a 5-foot-10-inch Charlotte native who came off the bench to make 5-of-7 3-point tries. Larranaga said Cornelius had "a busload" of family in town to watch him play.

"He's a tough little guy, and he plays like that all the time," Larranaga said.

But it was Larranaga who made a key move that might have won his team the game. With about 8 minutes left, he put the 6-foot-6 Birdsong on the 6-foot-4 Hinnant in an attempt to get the red-hot Hinnant under control.

Hinnant took just three shots - all 3-pointers - in the final 8 minutes, missing them all.

Hinnant, a senior, said he didn't drive the lane on the slower Birdsong because by then, the Pirates were trying to pass the ball to the low post.

"They did a good job of pressuring us to the point where we couldn't get the ball where we needed to get it," McCarthy said.

The first half ended after the Pirates (3-1), facing a five-point deficit that was the largest for either team to that point, roared back with a 6-0 spurt.

Hinnant, who had 18 points in the first half, hit a 3-pointer from the left wing with 33.8 seconds left to give ECU a 39-38 halftime advantage.

Sophomore center Chad Wynn had 11 points for the Pirates, who knocked off George Mason 68-65 in Washington, D.C., last December.

ECU opened the season with blowout wins over Campbell and a pair of Division II schools. McCarthy said the team continued to make progress Saturday against a team he believes is a candidate to make a second straight NCAA Tournament appearance.

"I'm pleased that we were able to compete in this caliber of game this early in the season," he said.

"We had a lot of positives that we can build on, and we'll see how we react to this loss. That's another thing a young team has to learn." 

NOTES: The loss snapped a five-game home winning streak for the Pirates, dating back to last season. ... Hinnant, who played all 40 minutes, moved into fifth all-time at ECU with his 144th career 3-pointer. ... Pirates point guard Brock Young was 0-for-7 from the field but dished out a career-high 10 assists. ... The announced attendance was 4,781.

David Hall can be reached at (252) 559-1086 or at dhall@freedomenc.com.