East Carolina’s Darrius Morrow picked up his fourth foul with 8 minutes, 14 seconds left in Wednesday’s game against Southern Methodist. Luckily for Morrow and his teammates, the outcome was pretty much already decided by then.

The Pirates’ men’s basketball team used a huge run to close the first half and led by as many as 27 in the second en route to its second consecutive win, 62-43, over Southern Methodist in Minges Coliseum. Morrow, the team’s senior leader and second-leading scorer, scored just eight points and leading scorer Miguel Paul had only nine, but a balanced attack and a key absence for SMU helped ECU (11-10, 2-6 Conference USA) notch the blowout win.

“Not having their best player obviously was a big factor in the game; let’s not kid ourselves,” East Carolina coach Jeff Lebo said of the Mustangs’ leading scorer and rebounder, Robert Nyakundi, who was benched with a hamstring injury. “Still, you have to go out and win the game and we did that.”

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