GREENVILLE — It wasn’t the senior night Prince Williams, Michael Zangari and company hoped for against Memphis Sunday afternoon as the Tigers ran away with an 83-53 win in Minges Coliseum.

The Pirates (12-19, 4-14 American Athletic Conference) conceded 22 turnovers in the game and allowed Memphis (17-14, 8-10 AAC) to score easily in transition. The Tigers scored 32 points off turnovers while ECU scored three off Memphis’ 10 turnovers. Williams has been reliable all season to control the ball, but the senior point guard lost his handle often, threw errant passes and finished with six giveaways. Zangari, who wore No. 41 for his fellow senior big man Marshall Guilmette, had three turnovers in the loss.

“We helped them in a lot of areas with giving them the ball as many times as we did,” said ECU head coach Jeff Lebo. “They had 32 points off turnovers, I told my team you’re not going to beat anybody with that. That’s the area where we’ve been good.

“We’ve taken care of the ball, assists-to-turnovers have been good and our decision making with passes has been good. We did none of that today. It’s been puzzling, to say the least, to watch us try to move the ball. We couldn’t even dribble.”

ECU trailed big at the half, 41-26, but the Pirates came close to a breakthrough early in the second half. Zargari and Michel Nzege quickly cut the lead to 11 with a pair of layups to open the half. The Pirates forced a miss at the other end and Zangari missed a three on the ensuing possession.

From there, Memphis ran away with the game. Trahson Burrell hit a layup in transition, Avery Woodson buried a pair of 3-pointers and forced Lebo to call a timeout. Shaq Goodwin took over after the break and scored six straight points, four in the paint and two from the free throw line, to push the lead to 21 points. The air completely left Minges and the Tigers never looked back.

“They just played well today and they capitalized on every mistake we made, and we made a lot of them,” Zangari said. “It was a big shot and I noticed that when I shot it and they came down and hit one, I was like ‘man, I could have cut it down there.’ They were just on top of things today, they played well and hats off to them.”

Lebo poured through senior night breakdowns before the game and preached heavily to his team to not let the pregame ceremonies take the energy out of the game. Lebo mentioned Texas’ 20-point senior night loss to Kansas and ECU’s victory over South Florida on its senior night.

Williams said the pregame did not affect his play in the game and that things were business as usual for him.

“I don’t let stuff like that get to me,” said the point guard. “I mean, it was a good ceremony and I’m glad my family was here and all the fans showed us support, but I blocked all of that out. When it’s time to play, it’s time to play and there’s no excuse for what happened tonight.”

Lebo started his seniors for their final game at home. Peyton Robbins, Drew Bost, Kanu Aja, Zangari and Williams took the floor for the opening tip. Robbins pulled down a rebound in his minute of action. Bost, a sharpshooter, missed a three from the elbow in his only attempt in the same minutes as Robbins.

Zangari did not sport the No. 34 jersey for his senior night, but instead paid tribute to friend, teammate and fellow big man Guilmette. Guilmette was set to be a big piece on the inside for ECU for his redshirt junior season, but his injury ridden career was cut short due to a medical condition. Zangari wore Guilmette’s No. 41 to honor his career.

“I knew he wasn’t going to be able to be out there with us and I wanted to do something special for him,” said Zangari. “So we talked about a couple options and that was just the most logical. It was really cool to get a chance to do that for him. I know it meant a lot to him, too.”

ECU will head to Orlando for the AAC tournament this week where it will face USF Thursday. The Pirates and Bulls split the season series with each team winning the road contest.