It turns out there isn’t an easy portion of the schedule for East Carolina’s men’s basketball team.

After beating Tulane in New Orleans on Jan. 24, the Pirates had a chance to climb the Conference USA standings with home games against Rice, which was winless in league play, and Central Florida, which had lost three straight. But instead of building on the momentum of getting its first C-USA win of the season, ECU proved to be a most hospitable host as both the Owls and the Knights left Greenville with victories, and in turn left the Pirates tied with Rice for last place in the league standings.

Defensive problems were mostly to blame for the 69-58 loss to Rice last Saturday in Minges Coliseum, a game in which the Owls — who had lost seven consecutive games — led by as many as 20 points in the first half.

On Tuesday against UCF, the Pirates got a Herculean effort from junior forward Jamar Abrams, who scored a game- and career-high 28 points, but the rest of ECU’s team struggled. The Pirates shot just 38.9 percent (21-of-54) from the field, one game after hitting 31.1 percent (19-of-61) of their field goal attempts versus the Owls.

Leading scorer Brock Young has been the main contributor to ECU’s shooting woes the last two games, going a combined 7-of-33 from the field. But Pirate coach Mack McCarthy said his point guard isn’t solely to blame.

“Everybody says, ‘Why is he shooting all the shots if he’s not shooting a good percentage?’” McCarthy said. “Well, some of it is because no one else is getting shots or no one else is getting open or he’s got the ball at the end of the shot clock. Those things affect his numbers too.

“But a whole lot of it is he’s just lost a little bit of confidence and the only thing that gets that back is having some success.”

Lack of confidence isn’t a concern for only Young. McCarthy said all of the Pirates are suffering from it and it might not come back quickly.

“It’s hard to get that confidence back,” the coach, in his third season in charge at ECU, said. “You don’t get it back in one day or one practice or one week of practice.”

The Pirates’ next opportunity to snap out of their doldrums is coming up Saturday at Marshall, where ECU has never won in six tries.

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