East Carolina Basketball

History was made Tuesday when the East Carolina Pirates beat the Weber State Wildcats in the finals of the College Insider Tournament, 77-74.

The win marks the first tournament championship in ECU basketball history and will result in the first men’s basketball banner to hang from the empty rafters of Minges Coliseum.

The Wildcats came into last night’s game winning 14 straight home games, losing just once in the Dee Events Center all season. The Pirates were definite underdogs, but delivered with great guard play from Miguel Paul and Maurice Kemp’s ninth straight game with 20-plus points.

The competition was fierce through the first half. Wildcats’ guard Scott Bamforth came out of the gate shooting, knocking down the first six points of the game on two three-pointers. It was the Pirates’ big men that kept them in the game. Ty Armstrong threw down a vicious slam five minutes into the game and hit four one-handed jumpers a few feet outside of the paint in the first half.

After being down six at one point, the Pirates headed into the locker room up seven at the half.

The second half told a similar story, a back-and-fourth affair.

With three minutes remaining, the Pirates found themselves down 71-65, but a clutch three from Maurice Kemp and a momentum-swinging alley-oop by Robert Sampson, assisted by Miguel Paul, gave the Pirates a one-point lead with 38 seconds remaining. Then, a bad foul from Paul put star point guard Davion Berry on the line for two shots.

After sinking the first one, Berry missed the second and gave the Pirates the opportunity for the last shot. With time ticking away, University of Rhode Island transfer Akeem Richmond stepped back and hit a three-pointer as time expired. It dropped, sealing the most significant victory in the history of ECU’s basketball program.

The win moved ECU’s record to 23-13 and dropped Weber State’s record to 30-7.

ECU will join the soon-to-be renamed Big East conference in 2014.

Junior Darrius Morrow (11 points, eight rebounds, 3-of-4 free throws) connected on a three-point play with four seconds remaining.  Helping ECU rebuttal their previous loss to Charlotte 74-63 at the Charleston Classic on November 19.

East Carolina (6-2) held their largest lead 59-50 with 4:53 to go in the game when Charlotte (3-5) sharp shooter Gokhan Sirin hit a big three for the 49ers, sparking an 11-to-0 run. Sirin's three with 15 seconds left gave the 49ers their first lead since the 10:53 mark.

Charlotte space eater, Phil Jones (14 points, 10 rebounds, 4-5 free throws), led the team in points, ironically fouled Morrow with four seconds remaining, followed by "D-Mo" hitting the game-winning free throw.

Morrow was asked after the game if he felt any nerves being put on the line to end the game. “Honestly, not really," he said. "I didn’t want to go into overtime and put all my focus into that one free throw.

“It was a good situation to be in, it added some toughness to my game.”

Senior Jontae Sherrod went off for the second straight game coming off the bench, playing 31 minutes. Sherrod led the way for the Pirates, finishing with 19 points, five rebounds, and was on fire knocking down five trifectas tonight.

"I'm just doing my job," Sherrod said. "Coach told me to be aggressive and shoot. So I came in shooting." 

"I told Jontae before the game we were going to bring him off the bench," Coach Lebo said. "I don't know how he felt, [but] he acted ok."

Sherrod also came off the bench last game scoring 17 points and six rebounds, all in just 22 minutes of play. I am getting the vibe these guys are really starting to "buy" in to the unselfish system, something that Coach Lebo and the players have been preaching since Day 1.

Senior floor general Brock Young added 14 points and five rebounds while sharing the rock well, dishing out six assists.

Young talked after the game about the Pirates current four game winning streak. "It's a good winning streak. Since this summer we've been preaching that we want to have a winning season.

"We haven't had a winning season in 14 years and they say that every day and that's just a motivation in practice. We just go hard at it everyday in practice, try to get better as a team, as whole, and come play as a team. Not just one person trying to carry this team on their back."

These words from the Captain are an early holiday present for you Pirate fans, as it is easy to see this team wants to be a team. Everyone understands they have a certain role and that everyone can feed off each others bread and butter, rather than someone trying to do it all themselves.  

East Carolina stepped it up on defense in the second half, holding Charlotte to 32 percent shooting, forcing Charlotte into long possessions which resulted into bad shot selections for the 49ers.

Coach Lebo acknowledged defense being the beneficial factor to keeping the Pirates in the game.

“Defense in a game were you’re not shooting the ball well, [we] didn’t shoot it very well in the first half, kept us in it in the second half until we could get that little bit of a run and that is going to be our emphasis for the whole year.”

Only guard Derrio Green joined fellow Niner Jones in double figures, finishing with 11 points, but forced three critical turnovers.

The Pirates started off streaky but finished strong on offense going 14-of-27 (51.9 percent) in the second half, finishing with a respectable 42 percent from the floor (24-of-57).

East Carolina will face with division II Fayetteville State on Saturday evening at 5 p.m. inside Williams Arena at Minge’s Coliseum.

Even in Conference USA, it is difficult to make it into the first division without top-notch talent. Just ask East Carolina’s Mack McCarthy.

The longtime head basketball coach, who won a combined 309 games at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga (243-122) and Virginia Commonwealth (66-55) has found the going tough at ECU, going 24-36 (10-22 in C-USA) the past two seasons.

Though the Pirates advanced from 10th place in the conference to ninth last year, and won two extra basketball games (13), the team simply didn’t have the size or athleticism to make their mark in a moderately strong C-USA last year.

McCarthy’s most talented player, Sam Hinnant, has exhausted his eligibility, taking along with him 15 ppg and 3.8 rpg. Hinnant led the team in points, field goals made and attempted (138 of 358), threes made and attempted (85 of 235), and was second on the teams in total assists (58).

Fellow starter James Legan was also a senior last year, and his 11.8 ppg were second on the team, while he was second in total steals, field goals, and treys. He and Hinnant will be missed, both for their production and for their leadership.

The Pirates’ biggest and best post threat, senior Chad Wynn, returns to the roster, for better or for worse. He has nice size, at 6’10”, 255 pounds, but he is not much of a threat to score (7.0 points per game in 2008-’09) though he led C-USA in field goal percentage (.592) and isn’t athletic enough to rebound very well (4.0 rebounds per game).

The four-guard set that Carolina ran for long stretches last year will likely be scrapped, with the continued maturation of sophomore Darrius Morrow (6’8”, 250).

Morrow, who started 11 games a season ago, ended the campaign averaging 9.7 ppg (fifth on the team), was the squad’s leading rebounder at 6.7 rpg, and finished second in the conference in offensive rebounds per night (3.1). He was named to the C-USA All Freshman team as a result.

The only problem with having he and Wynn start together is the fact that Wynn will take up space that Morrow could use to operate. Look for Morrow to pitch forward and Wynn to fade into the background as the season progresses, provided Morrow thrives.

Dynamic point guard Brock Young (pictured) returns to lead the attack. He led C-USA in assists per contest (7.6) as a sophomore, while also scoring 10.6 ppg, third on the team. He’ll step into the leadership vacuum left upon the graduation of Hinnant and Legan.

Expect him to be ably supported by junior Jamar Abrams, who was fourth on the team in scoring a season ago at 10 ppg, and who led the team in three-point field goal percentage (.426). He will be expected to shoulder more of the scoring burden this year.

The Pirates signed an intriguing four-man recruiting class which could step in and make contributions right away on a team that could use an infusion of size, length, and athleticism.

Coryonn Gaines, 6'4", younger brother of former Louisville All-American and first-round NBA pick Reece Gaines, joins the program from Worcester (Mass.) Academy prep. Gaines put his all-around game on display at Worcester, averaging 12 points, five rebounds, four assists, and two steals per contest.

ECU also picked up Erin Straughn, rated the No. 13 prospect in Florida’s Class of 2009 by HoopScoop , who has good size (6’6”, 200) and scored almost 17 ppg as a senior, as well as Wakefield Ellison, an explosive scorer (22.1 ppg) from North Carolina who also has good size (6’5”, 190) for a wing player.

Perhaps their prize recruit, however, is a Jarvis Varnado-like post player, Darius Morales from Timber Creek High in Orlando, Fla.

Morales, born in Puerto Rico, isn’t the biggest player (6’9”, 210) in the world, but he’s wiry and has a knack for the blocked shot (4.3 per game as a senior). Unfortunately for ECU, he’s also raw offensively (11.4 ppg), but he gets after it on the boards (9.8 rpg).

The schedule is a bit unkind. The Pirates drew a formidable Tennessee team in the opening round of the U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam, with NCAA Tournament team Northern Iowa looming further in the draw.

There are home games with Clemson, George Washington, VCU, and Wake Forest, as well as a road contest against North Carolina-Charlotte, which renews an old rivalry this year. Their league games against UAB, UTEP, and Memphis are all on the road, while they draw single tilts with Houston and Tulsa at home at cozy Minges Coliseum, a notoriously difficult place to play.

The Pirates could be in for a regression in record this year. Despite a jackrabbit 8-1 start last season, and a 13-11 mark late in the year, six losses in a row to end the campaign doomed the club to a 13-17 overall ledger.

With the Paradise Jam this year almost certain to inflict at least two losses, not to mention other early tests that ECU will likely fail, tying last year’s mark seems overly ambitious.

In the final analysis, the Pirates will struggle to break into the upper echelon of C-USA. They don’t have the talent of Memphis, the depth of UTEP, or the experience of Tulsa. But Coach McCarthy’s charges do have a lot of upside. Anyone who takes them lightly will be in for a rude awakening.