Courtney Captain scored 29 points in his final home game for East Carolina -- including the game-winning three-pointer with 10 seconds left -- as the Pirates ended a 13-game losing streak with a 79-78 victory over UTEP on Saturday night in Greenville, N.C.

It was the first C-USA win of the season for East Carolina (6-21, 1-13 C-USA), and its first since a 68-50 thumping of Chowan University on Jan. 6. UTEP (14-14, 6-8 C-USA) dropped to 1-8 on the road in 2006-07.

Averaging 58.2 points coming into the game -- worst in Conference USA -- the Pirates took a 49-38 lead at the half behind Captain, who put up 24 points and buried five three-point shots.

The 49 points were the most for the Pirates in a half this season. They scored 45 points in the second half against N.C. Central on Nov. 26.

As for Captain, he established a career-high for scoring in the first half alone. His previous best was 22 points versus Richmond and Southern Miss earlier this season. The native of Galveston, Texas was 8-for-13 from the field, 5-for-9 from outside and 3-for-3 from the line in the first half.

The Pirates shot a sizzling 56.3 percent from the floor in the first half, making half of their 14 three-point tries.

Traling 57-43 with 17:38 left in the game, the Miners went on a 22-8 run to tie the game at 65 on a jumper by Dale Vanwright with 5:58 to go.

UTEP knotted the contest at 72 on Vanwright's three-pointer at the 2:49 mark, then took its first lead since it was 4-3 with 1:55 remaining on Stefon Jackson's jumper.

Jackson scored 24 points for the Miners, and Vanwright had a career-high 17.

The lead went back-and-forth until Captain drained the three-pointer in the final seconds. Jackson's jumper with less than a second remaining from five feet fell short.

The Miners will host Memphis on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. MST in a nationally televised (ESPN2) game. The seventh-ranked Tigers (24-3, 13-0 C-USA) have already clinched the Conference USA regular season title and will host Houston on Sunday afternoon. Memphis will be making its second visit to El Paso and its first since Dec. 18, 1971, when the Miners beat the Tigers 85-79 in the championship game of the Sun Carnival Classic.