The UNC Wilmington Seahawks and the East Carolina Pirates meet Thursday in college basketball action from Minges Coliseum. UNC Wilmington is fresh off a win over Florida Gulf Coast that improved the Seahawks to 5-1 on the season. As for East Carolina, they dropped to 4-3 so far following their latest loss to George Mason. Let’s get into our UNC Wilmington vs. East Carolina prediction. 

UNC Wilmington Seahawks 

The Seahawks jumped out to a great start this year, hitting four straight wins over Mount Olive, UNC Asheville, Columbia International, and Murray State. UNC Wilmington followed that up with their lone loss to Appalachian State, however. The Seahawks shot just 30.6 percent from the field in that game with a 43-28 rebounding deficit. 

UNC Wilmington got back into the win column in their last game versus Florida Gulf Coast. The Seahawks went into the second half up 37-25, then hit 34 more points in a 71-55 result. tops in scoring was Trazarien White with 22 points off the bench alongside five rebounds and three assists in the winning effort. 

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East Carolina Pirates 

Over on the East Carolina side, they had losses to USC Upstate and Northeastern sandwiched between consecutive wins over Ferrum, Campbell, Georgia Southern, and Kennesaw State to start the year. The Pirates had a nice 47-37 advantage on the boards in the tight 85-84 win over Kennesaw State. The Pirates are 4-3 in the American Conference, where only UTSA (3-4) and Rice (1-5) are below .500.

East Carolina wasn’t able to keep it going in their latest outing versus George Mason. The Pirates trailed by eight going into the break and were further outscored 42-28 from there in an 81-59 defeat. Both Brandon Johnson and Quentin Diboundje had 13 points apiece with nine combined rebounds. *

EAST CAROLINA VS UNC WILMINGTON PREDICTION 

I’ll just stay with UNC Wilmington. The Seahawks played a pretty strong game versus an overmatched Florida Gulf Coast squad in their last outing, ending up with 47.2 percent shooting from the field and 13-of-15 (86.7 percent) from the line. That makes 71 or more points in all five wins so far for UNC Wilmington. 

As for East Carolina, they couldn’t handle a pretty good George Mason team in their last matchup and shot just 34.5 percent from the field with 61.9 percent (13-of-21) from the line. The Pirates normally score better than that, though; they’ve hit 76 or more points in all of their other games this year. We should have a pretty high total here, and I like the Seahawks to pull off the cover/win.