While the Brock Young Show is fun to watch, more times than not, the show doesn’t end with an East Carolina victory.

Young spun, drove and shot his way to a career-high 26 points in ECU’s men’s basketball game against Marshall on Saturday night in Minges Coliseum. Unfortunately for the Pirates, Young didn’t get a lot of help from his teammates, and the result was an 83-65 Thundering Herd victory.

East Carolina (6-10, 0-2 Conference USA) was using an offense that Young said he and his teammates had only learned earlier in the week. Most of the time against Marshall (13-2, 2-0), the offensive mantra appeared to be, “Brock, go score.”

With Herd defenders locking up on ECU’s perimeter shooters, Young’s penetrate-and-dish mentality switched to penetrate and shoot without open teammates.

“The reason (the offense) didn’t work was because (Marshall) glued up on the shooters,” said Young, who also grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. “So when I penetrate, shooters don’t (get open) and we just couldn’t get a rhythm.”

The Pirates trailed 40-35 after Jamar Abrams hit a free throw with 18 minutes, 23 seconds left to play.

But Marshall seized control soon thereafter. A quick 7-0 Herd run gave Marshall a 47-35 lead, but Young hit a 3 to make it a nine-point game, 47-38.

ECU stayed in the nine-point range for the next few minutes until Damier Pitts, who led the Herd with 17 points, drove in for a layup that made it 62-51 with 9:40 remaining. The Pirates got no closer than 11 the rest of the way and Chris Lutz’s 3-pointer with 8 ticks left completed the scoring, giving Marshall its biggest lead of the night as well.

While most of the attention leading up to the game was focused on the Herd’s pair of post standouts — Hassan Whiteside and Tyler Wilkerson — Pitts and his perimeter pals combined to knock down 11 triples, seven in the first half.

“My teammates put me in good positions for good looks,” said Pitts, a Charlotte native who was one of three Marshall players with three 3s on the night. “We’re not really known for it. We’d rather play inside-out, but shots were just coming tonight so we were taking them and knocking them down.”

ECU center Chad Wynn was in foul trouble for the second consecutive game, picking up his fourth and going to the bench with 10:41 left in the game. Wynn, who fouled out in a loss at UAB on Wednesday, had eight points and four rebounds in 24 minutes.

Abrams’ free throw wound up being his only point of the game as his streak of games in double-figure scoring ended at seven straight after an 0-of-6 field goal shooting effort. Jontae Sherrod didn’t hit double digits for the second consecutive game and third time in his last four outings.

Darrius Morrow was ECU’s only other bright spot, finishing with 15 points and tying Young with a team-high seven rebounds.

“We had enough open looks to stay with (the Herd), even though we didn’t really execute offensively,” Pirates’ third-year coach Mack McCarthy said. “At the same time, we missed a lot of open shots that could have made some difference in this game.”

Asked to assess his point guard’s play, McCarthy praised Young’s effort while imploring the rest of the Pirates not to get caught watching the point guard’s show.

“Brock is such a competitive guy, he’s got to kind of be careful that he doesn’t try to do so much that everybody stands around and watches him, which we do on occasion,” McCarthy said. “When no one else is getting anything done, he can take over and do some things. But we didn’t help him much tonight.”

Cam Miller came off the bench and hit two quick 3s from the left baseline to give Marshall a 22-13 lead with 11:15 left in the first half.

The Herd stretched its lead to as many as 13 points before ECU stemmed the tide and got back to within single digits. Young’s layup on a nice outlet pass from Morrow cut Marshall’s lead to 34-27 with 1:42 left until halftime.

Miller nailed another triple to extend the Herd’s lead back to 40-29, but Sherrod drained a 3 of his own at the first half buzzer to make it 40-32 at intermission.

Whiteside and Wilkerson each finished with 10 points for Marshall and Whiteside, a 7-footer, blocked five shots, right on his 5.1 bpg average. Lutz added 13 points for the Herd.

East Carolina plays again Wednesday at Memphis.

Contact Tony Castleberry at tcastleberry@reflector.com or (252) 329-9591.

MARSHALL 83, EAST CAROLINA 65

MARSHALL (13-2)

Whiteside 4-11 2-2 10, Wilkerson 3-7 4-6 10, Pitts 6-11 2-2 17, Pena 2-5 1-2 7, Lutz 4-7 2-2 13, Merthie 1-5 2-2 4, Miller 3-4 0-0 9, Johnson 2-5 5-5 9, Spikes 2-2 0-0 4. Totals 27-57 18-21 83.

EAST CAROLINA (6-10)

Morrow 5-9 5-6 15, Abrams 0-6 1-2 1, Wynn 4-10 0-0 8, Young 8-18 9-11 26, Sherrod 3-10 0-0 7, Sargent 0-1 0-0 0, Gaines 0-0 0-0 0, Straughn 0-0 0-0 0, Ellison 1-1 0-0 2, Joyner 2-3 2-2 6. Totals 23-58 17-21 65.

Halftime—Marshall 40-32. 3-Point Goals—Marshall 11-23 (Miller 3-4, Lutz 3-6, Pitts 3-7, Pena 2-2, Merthie 0-1, Wilkerson 0-1, Johnson 0-2), East Carolina 2-13 (Young 1-2, Sherrod 1-5, Sargent 0-1, Abrams 0-5). Fouled Out—None. Rebounds—Marshall 35 (Wilkerson 8), East Carolina 33 (Morrow, Young 7). Assists—Marshall 17 (Johnson, Lutz 4), East Carolina 10 (Young 4). Total Fouls—Marshall 15, East Carolina 16. A—4,405.