SMU’s Ike Ofoegbu looks to score in Saturday night’s victory over the East Carolina Pirates. (Danny Wilderotter)

The Mustangs haven’t had much to celebrate this season, with wins hard to come by and an ever-changing injury list. Saturday night’s 65-42 win over East Carolina might be what SMU needed.

But as with anything in life, with the good comes the bad.

Before Saturday’s game, the Mustangs dismissed senior forward/guard Brian Epps from the team for “behavior that is not acceptable in the program,” according to head coach Matt Doherty.

Doherty continued, “We have core values on this team, and we have to enforce them.”

Epps contributed 8.9 points and 3.2 rebounds in the 19 games he played this season. Epps was suspended to start the season and has been suspended from two other games against Texas College and Southern Miss.

With Epps no longer on the roster and injuries to Bamba Fall and Devon Pearson, the Mustangs were without three key players.

It was the perfect time for SMU to play the worst team in the conference, the Pirates.

“We worked on shooting [in practice]; it felt like we were getting good looks,” said Doherty. The Mustangs shot just 36 percent in last Wednesday’s loss to Marshall.

“We didn’t want to give [ECU] confidence at the beginning of the game,” said Doherty. And the Mustangs didn’t, making their first four shot attempts from three-point range. All of SMU’s first 18 points were on three-point shots. ECU never had a lead in the game.

It had also been a while since the Mustangs had a balanced offense, which is what they had Saturday.

Derrick Roberts led the team with 15 points, but got help from the other starters who each scored 11 points. Ike Ofoegbu collected 15 rebounds along with 11 points to give him his eighth double-double of the season, and his third in a row. Ofoegbu has also scored in double figures in the last nine games.

The lack of three starting players meant more playing time for Cameron Spencer and Paulius Ritter.

In 24 minutes Spencer grabbed four rebounds and had two assists, and according to Doherty, “he looked a little nervous, but he is now our first big guy off the bench.”

Ritter didn’t see as much time, only 12 minutes, but got four rebounds.

“Paulius [Ritter] did a real good job of communicating on defense, and he went after rebounds,” said Doherty.

The Mustangs will look to continue their winning ways against UTEP on Wednesday night in El Paso.