Tulsa 65, East Carolina 50

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) _ Calvin Walls scored a career-high 15 points and Rod Earls added 13 to lead Tulsa to a 65-50 victory over East Carolina in the Conference USA tournament. <br/><br/>5th-seeded Tulsa

Thursday, March 8th 2007, 5:58 am

By: News On 6

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) _ Calvin Walls scored a career-high 15 points and Rod Earls added 13 to lead Tulsa to a 65-50 victory over East Carolina in the Conference USA tournament.

5th-seeded Tulsa (20-10) will face Number 4 seed Tulane in a second-round game today.

Courtney Captain led East Carolina (6-24) with 27 points, hitting 10 of 18 shots.

TU put together a 15-to-2 run in the first half Wednesday night to build a 31-15 lead over the Pirates and carried a 34-21 advantage into intermission.

East Carolina cut Tulsa's lead to 8 points when Gabe Blair hit a jumper with 12:56 left in the game.

It was the only time in the second half the Pirates would get the deficit to single digits as Tulsa answered with eight straight points to extend the lead back to 52-36.

Tulsa eventually would lead by as many as 17 points with 5 minutes left.