ESTERO, Fla. – Senior JT Shumate scored a game-high 25 points and junior RayJ Dennis added 21 on Tuesday morning but that wasn't enough for the Toledo men's basketball team in an 86-75 loss to East Carolina on the second day of the Gulf Coast Showcase in Hertz Arena.

"It's a tough loss but we'll come back from it," Head Coach Tod Kowalczyk said. "We need to share the ball more and trust each other in shot-clock situations. We're also playing too much 1-on-1 basketball and need to move the basketball more."

Senior Setric Millner Jr. also was in double figures for the Rockets (3-2) with 11 points to go along with a team-high seven rebounds.

Javon Small topped the Pirates (4-1) with 24 points and seven assists. ECU's Brandon Johnson also recorded a double-double (14 pts.-10 reb.) to help the Pirates register a 35-23 advantage on the boards.

Both teams shot similar percentages from the field with ECU's 47.5 mark slightly better than the Rockets' 44.3 figure. The big difference in the contest was the Pirates converting 12-of-25 three-point attempts compared to Toledo's 6-of-16 totals.

Toledo was 15-of-18 (.833) at the free-throw line, while ECU was 18-of-22 (.818).

The Rockets fell behind 23-10 midway through the first half before rattling off 18 straight points to take a five-point lead. Toledo held a one-point lead at intermission, but a 10-2 spurt gave the Pirates a 64-55 advantage with 6:42 to play that was too large to overcome.

The Rockets will close out the Gulf Coast Showcase tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. against Northern Kentucky (2-3).

HOW IT HAPPENED

FIRST HALF

• Four different Rockets scored in the opening minutes, but East Carolina took an early 10-8 lead.
• The Pirates used a 13-2 run to take a 23-10 advantage at the 9:33 mark.
• Toledo responded with 18 unanswered points to take its first lead of the game, 28-23, with 4:17 left in the half. Six different Rockets scored during the stretch with RayJ Dennis' seven points leading the way.
• A JT Shumate three-pointer extended the Rockets' lead to 31-25, but Toledo was only able to take a 33-32 lead to the locker room.
• Shumate was Toledo's scoring leader in the first half with 10 points and Dennis added nine.
• The Rockets shot 40.6 percent from the field with ECU posting a 42.3 figure.

SECOND HALF

• Neither team led by more than three points in the second half until the Pirates hit back-to-back baskets for a 47-43 advantage with 12:02 to play.
• Shumate scored five straight points to give Toledo back the lead, 48-47, nearly two minutes later.
• A three-pointer from RJ Felton and a four-point play by Javon Small provided ECU an eight-point cushion, 61-53, with 7:20 remaining.
• Setric Millner Jr. answered Small's four-point play with a putback on the next possession but that was as close as UT would get.