It seems to be a conversation starter these days, questions regarding N.C. State's basketball coaching hire. What do you think of Mark Gottfried? And, more specifically, do you think he can get the job done?

East Carolina basketball coach Jeff Lebo knows Mark Gottfried. Lebo knows him the way the CEO at Pepsi-Cola knows the CEO at Coca-Cola, the way the Hatfields knew the McCoys, the way Mike Krzyzewski knows Roy Williams.

Lebo, of course, coached against Gottfried when Lebo was at Auburn and Gottfried was at Alabama. That rivalry runs as deep as any. A Crimson Tide supporter was arrested for poisoning a sacred stand of oak trees at Toomer's Corner at Auburn. Seems the Tigers' BCS football championship in 2010 was too much to take without some retribution.

Lebo, of course, doesn't function on the low end of the spectrum when it comes to competition.

"I thought it was a great hire," said the Pirates coach. "I've known Mark for a long time. I obviously competed against him. We were in the same state there. Auburn-Alabama is the Duke-Carolina thing. It's the same kind of passion within the state.

"I thought it was a great hire for N.C. State. Mark's a classy guy. Mark will do a terrific job there at N.C. State. He has a passion to coach. He's been out of coaching for a while. He did a great job on the television. I thought he did a super job there doing that but his passion is to get back and coach."

Lebo was in Charlotte on Tuesday, Greensboro on Wednesday and Raleigh on Thursday for Pirate Club functions. He said he hadn't spoken with Gottfried since he replaced Sidney Lowe.

"I haven't talked to him on the telephone but I did text him," Lebo said. "He's excited and hitting the ground running."

Lebo was there

The Pirates coach was doing many of the same things a year ago that Gottfried has been involved with — putting together a staff, getting on the same page with players in the program, making sure the baton wasn't dropped in terms of recruiting continuity and trying to win points with the fan base. Lebo grades Gottfried high in terms of the ability to get his teams ready.

"They were always well prepared," Lebo said. "Mark always had very good players, talented players at Alabama. With his background at UCLA (former Bruins assistant under Jim Harrick), they run a lot of the UCLA high post system. They're very good at it. ... The UCLA high post was something that Coach (John) Wooden was known for. So he's structured offensively ...

"Defensively, when we played them at least, they were man to man, with a little mixture of zone. ... Mark's been in it. He's experienced. He's been in it at a high level at a lot of different places. ... He has plenty of red jackets that he can bring straight over from Alabama. He doesn't have to change his wardrobe now."

SEC vs. ACC

Lebo, of course, played in the Atlantic Coast Conference at North Carolina and coached in the Southeastern Conference at Auburn. Both are elite leagues but they have different identities.

"The one thing that I've always thought is that the SEC was a very athletic league, a very physical league," Lebo said. "I thought that the ACC probably had a little bit more of a skilled basketball player. Those leagues are going to fluctuate from year to year, depending on graduation and recruiting, but both are very similar.

"The ACC has Duke. You have (North) Carolina. The SEC has Kentucky and has Florida so it has the national powers in it. It's got good coaching from top to bottom.

"The one thing when you talk about the ACC, the one thing you think about right away is basketball and when you think about the SEC, the first thing that pops in people's minds is football. But basketball (in the SEC) is very, very good. It's probably a little bit underrated as a basketball league."

Getting to know Gottfried

When Gottfried resigned at Alabama and was working in the role of an ESPN analyst the tone of his relationship with Lebo changed.

"I got to know him better after we weren't competing," Lebo said. "When you're coaching and you're coaching against somebody, you have some time at the (conference) meetings but everybody at those meetings is pretty guarded."

It was different when Gottfried would come in to do a game for the network.

"We'd just sit and talk and shoot the bull," said the ECU coach. "One thing, when you talk about coaches — we compete hard against each other but as coaches we understand what the other one is going through on a daily basis. A lot of coaches connect with each other because they know the other one is feeling the same way, going through the same things, has the same issues and even though we want to win, we want to beat the other guy, we have a lot of respect for those guys sitting on the other end. We know what they go through and understand that.

"I think as you get older, the paranoia kind of leaves you a little bit. You're not only playing against them two times a year or whatever it was at that point, you're competing against them in everything. That makes for a unique situation. You're recruiting. You're out on the road recruiting the same players, selling the program. You're doing a lot of the same stuff."

The bottom line on Lebo's appraisal is that NCSU athletic director Debbie Yow wound up with a capable, proven coach.

"He's finished his staff," Lebo said. "He's got a lot of guys that have experience in the state of North Carolina. He'll do fine there."

Stemming the Tide

As Lebo said, he recruited against Gottfried and the Crimson Tide on a daily basis earlier in his career. He faced similar challenges at Auburn to those he has encountered at ECU in terms of lack of tradition and facility needs.

As the best ones do in competitive situations, Lebo played to his strengths.

"It was always hard against Alabama," he said. "They had a little more history and tradition in basketball than we did but we certainly sold the chance to play — the situation where a guy could come in and maybe play right away. We obviously sold the school and the university, the great passion that we have. We sold our style of play, playing fast. We tried to find people that fit into our style, guys who could shoot the basketball.

"We sold those types of things to a player. We sold our staff and the concept that you're going to get better. You're going to be a heckuva lot better when you leave here. If you come here, you're going to be a heckuva lot better when you leave than when you came in."

On ECU-State scheduling

Given Lebo's relationship with the new State coach, might that lead to more matchups between East Carolina and the Wolfpack in the future?

"I haven't talked to Mark about that," Lebo said. "I don't know. When things calm down, we'll probably get a chance to talk. We're on the road in July a little bit. I'll mention it to him."

The home team has won every game in the State-ECU series, which the Pack leads 19-1. State won the most recent meeting on a neutral court at the Charleston (SC) Classic during Lebo's first season with the Pirates. ECU's lone triumph in the series came on Dec. 8, 2007 by a 75-69 score in Greenville.

Lebo's efforts in his first year at ECU produced an 18-16 record, the Pirates' first winning season since 1996-97. There were other notable accomplishments as well. The Pirate Nation developed an appreciation for the achievements and an enthusiasm for the future as ECU was a plus-8 on the previous season's win total.

A plus-8 for the Wolfpack under Gottfried in 2011-12 would get the program to 23 wins. That would give State fans a positive affirmation on the current conversation starters.