AD's hope: Break even in
C-USA
By
Al Myatt
©2009 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
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Terry Holland |
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Mack McCarthy |
(Photos: ECU
SID) |
East Carolina slipped to
1-61 all time in basketball competition against ACC schools with an
80-63 loss to Clemson in Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on Wednesday
night.
The outcome was certainly
in keeping with the Pirates' basketball tradition or lack thereof. ECU
dropped to 4-6 going into a Saturday night game with St. Andrews in
Greenville. The Pirates haven't had a winning season since 1996-97.
The irony of the situation
is that ECU athletic director Terry Holland is a basketball man. A star
player at Davidson, he later coached the Wildcats and made two trips to
the Final Four when he was directing the program at Virginia.
Despite Holland's
background, the culture of ECU athletics is steeped in football. Only
4,841 showed up to see what the Pirates could do against the Tigers,
ranked No. 24 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll.
A jumper by Jamar Abrams
gave ECU a brief 2-0 lead but the Tigers answered with a three-pointer
by Tanner Smith and Clemson expanded the lead to 14-4 less than five
minutes into the non-conference contest.
Trailing 46-29 at the
half, ECU played the Tigers even in the second half with each team
scoring 34 points. Holland is well aware of the Pirates' struggles in
hoops and the disparity with ECU's performance in some other sports,
notably football and baseball.
"The first thing we have
to do is be competitive, even in games like this against Clemson, and
that's awfully hard to do," Holland said Wednesday night. "They're a
talented, very athletic team. They play a style that makes it very
difficult to stay in the game with them unless you're having a good game
and being able to break their pressure.
"That's a tough nut. It's
hard to measure ourselves against this particular team or even a Wake
Forest with the tremendous size that they had. It's going to be hard to
evaluate until we get into the conference season."
Mack McCarthy is the third
basketball coach in the Holland era, which began in the fall of 2004.
McCarthy is the second hoops coach to be hired during Holland's
administration. McCarthy is a proven winner, but at ECU there seem to be
more questions than answers at the moment.
The presence of Holland
and McCarthy has resulted in four trips to Greenville by ACC teams over
the last three seasons. ECU took its only win over an ACC team by
topping N.C. State 75-69 under
McCarthy's guidance on Dec. 8, 2007.
McCarthy said following
the latest loss to the Tigers that he has seen potential for improvement
in practice. The unfortunate aspect of that promise was that it was
obscured by Clemson's defensive pressure and offensive execution on
Wednesday night. There was little carryover from practice to game
performance for the Pirates.
"I've told Mack all along
that the November and December games only count in terms of getting us
ready for conference play," Holland said. "We've got to start breaking
even at least in conference play. That's our goal and then build on that
— be competitive in the conference and then use that as a springboard to
be competitive in the non-conference games against some of the so-called
big boys in the area."
BOX SCORE
CLEMSON 80, EAST CAROLINA
63
Date: Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009
Place: Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum, Greenville, NC
Attendance: 4,841
Officials: Mike Wood, John Higgins, Les Jones
Technical Fouls: none
SCORE BY PERIODS 1
2 FINAL
Clemson
46 34 - 80
East Carolina 29 34 -
63
CLEMSON TIGERS (9-2)
PLAYER FG 3PT FT
R PTS MIN
15 Da. Potter......... f 1-7 1-5
0-0 1 3 28
35 Booker............. f 5-13 1-2
2-3 12 13 35
45 Grant.............. c 2-3 0-0
0-0 1 4 10
05 Smith.............. g 5-9 2-4
2-2 10 14 30
22 Stitt.............. g 2-7 0-2
1-1 3 5 21
01 Johnson.............. 2-4 2-3
0-0 2 6 18
03 Anderson............. 0-0 0-0
0-0 2 0 3
11 Young................ 5-10 4-7
2-2 1 16 24
21 Narcisse............. 0-0 0-0
0-0 1 0 4
24 Jennings............. 3-4 0-1
2-2 0 8 10
31 De. Booker........... 4-8 0-0
1-4 3 9 14
32 Hill................. 1-1 0-0
0-0 0 2 3
TEAM....................
4
TOTALS.................. 30-66 10-24 10-14 40 80 200
PERCENT................. 45.5 41.7 71.4
EAST CAROLINA PIRATES (4-6)
PLAYER FG 3PT FT
R PTS MIN
01 Morrow............. f 6-12 0-0
4-7 12 16 38
21 Abrams............. f 5-12 0-3
2-2 6 12 30
33 Wynn............... c 1-3 0-0
0-0 3 2 21
10 Young.............. g 4-10 2-4
1-2 4 11 30
24 Sherrod............ g 3-12 1-5 7-11
5 14 29
03 Sargent.............. 0-0 0-0
0-0 0 0 1
11 Gaines............... 0-1 0-0
0-0 0 0 5
15 Turner............... 1-2 0-0
0-1 0 2 14
23 Straughn............. 0-0 0-0
0-0 0 0 4
30 Ellison.............. 0-0 0-0
0-0 0 0 8
42 Joyner............... 3-4 0-0
0-0 4 6 20
TEAM....................
3
TOTALS.................. 23-56 3-12 14-23 37 63 200
PERCENT................. 41.1 25.0 60.9
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PAGE UPDATED
12/17/09 04:49 AM.
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