GREENVILLE — It took mere seconds for South Carolina State to silence East Carolina and the Minges Coliseum faithful. Ty Soloman lobbed the ball to Darryl Palmer, who slammed it home for the game’s first basket.

The Pirates didn’t reel from the early alley-oop. Instead, they responded with a 13-0 run to produce a 13-2 lead four minutes into the contest. White and B.J. Tyson punctuated the run with back-to-back dunks in quick succession that forced a timeout from the visitors.

Things rest of the game came easy to the Pirates as they cruised to a 98-71 win. They missed just two shots over the course of that run, which gave them shooting confidence and allowed them to settle in quickly.

“Any time you shoot it that well, it just gives you energy,” said coach Jeff Lebo. “It makes everything easier, it makes everything crisper. When you miss shots, everything — even passing — is hard. Thinking is hard. It’s something about being able to put the ball in the basket that gives you tremendous energy and confidence to play the game. That’s the way you’ve got to play the game.”

Lebo added that that holds especially true for the younger players. Tyson exemplified that perfectly. The sophomore guard led the charge in the first half with a near-perfect shooting performance. He went missed just one shot and was 4-of-4 from 3-point range. His 20 first-half points helped lead ECU to a 58-31 lead after 20 minutes.

The team shot an astounding 68 percent from the floor — and 64.3 percent from long range — in the opening period. That momentum didn’t subside after the intermission. The Pirates opened the second half with a Kanu Aja dunk sandwiched between treys from White and Prince Williams.

“I’d like to bottle that shooting up and pour it out when I need it,” Lebo said. “We really, obviously, shot the ball well tonight. We were very aggressive offensively. You look down in half and we’re up 27 points. … I know their coach was as surprised as we were at our shooting in this game.”

The ball was shared generously among the Pirates. The team notched 24 assists on its 30 made baskets and three players — White, Williams and Lance Tejada — had at least five helpers.

“That’s just how it worked out,” White said. “That was the flow. Every one of our guards is capable of five assists or even more. It’s just about what the defense presents to you.”

White, on his only trip to the free-throw line, converted on both. It did more than extend ECU’s crushing lead as the two points pushed White over the 1,000-point horizon for his ECU career.

“It’s a great honor,” White said. “(I have) some great teammates that will always find me. They always keep my confidence up to score the rock, to step in and shoot the ball. It just means a lot.”

ECU wrapped up its non-conference portion of the season and will have some time off ahead of its American Athletic Conference opener against UCF on Jan. 2.