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College Sports in the Carolinas
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View
from the 'ville
Monday,
July 25, 2005
By Al Myatt |
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Pirate hoops maneuvering for
breakthroughs
©2005 Bonesville.net
Since the news broke that Terry Holland was
coming aboard the Pirate ship last Labor Day weekend, he has hired Skip
Holtz, Ricky Stokes and put together a future non-conference football lineup
that matches East Carolina against many of its natural regional rivals.
Holland is working on a similarly attractive
schedule for basketball but the former Virginia hoops coach concedes that's
not an easy assignment.
Is it more difficult than football?
"Definitely," Holland said. "Getting games is
not a problem but we want quality opponents to come here, too, and not too
many people are in a big hurry to do that."
The built-in attraction of Conference USA
games with Louisville, Cincinnati, Marquette and Charlotte is gone with
league realignment officially taking place earlier this month.
"Losing power teams and coaches hurt us in
terms of enthusiasm on campus," Holland said. "In the short term it won't
hurt us but we've got to get together a schedule that our players want to
play and our fans want to see."
ECU drew some good venues for its home and
home opponents in C-USA
scheduling. The Pirates will play every program in the 12-team
league once and will match up with Central Florida, Marshall and Tulane
twice for a total of 14 conference games. That means winter trips to Orlando
and New Orleans — a great opportunity for fans to support the Pirates on the
road in some fun locales.
But Holland's concern is finding foes that
fans will want to see in the Pirates' house. He would love to lure an
occasional ACC, Big East or Southeastern Conference team to Williams Arena
at Minges Coliseum to spark ticket sales, but home wins over Marquette,
Louisville and Charlotte in recent seasons have no doubt raised red flags
about the wisdom of such ventures for high profile opponents with concerns
about maintaining their rating power index for NCAA Tournament seeding.
The raucous nature of Williams Arena is a
two-edged sword. It has made the Pirates about 20 points better than on the
road in recent years but it's no doubt viewed as a mine field when Holland
calls potential foes.
Television is the driving force behind many of
the more compelling non-conference matchups in college basketball and the
programming executives don't yet see the Pirates as an entity that will
drive ratings.
From the mid-'nineties into the first couple
of years of the new millennium, the football Pirates were in demand on the
national TV dance cards, appearing 19 times on the ESPN networks and 10
times on Fox Sports Net from 1996-2001.
But basketball at ECU has never commanded the
same degree of exposure.
If Holland has a challenge in terms of
scheduling, it is no less formidable than the job Stokes faces in taking
over a program that has not had a winning season since 1996-97. Still, there
have been signs at ECU that a hoops ascension is not impossible.
"We were making progress when I was there
because we had an athletics director in Dave Hart who understood
basketball," said Eddie Payne, who coached ECU to its last NCAA Tournament
appearance in 1993.
Hart played basketball at Alabama. But Hart
departed for Florida State and Payne left for Oregon State. Henry VanSant,
who acted as interim AD upon Hart's departure, maintained some progressive
continuity by elevating Payne's top assistant, Joe Dooley, to head coach.
Dooley was 57-52 over four seasons, the only
coach among ECU's last 10 to leave Greenville with a winning record. Dooley
was dismissed by former AD Mike Hamrick in favor of Bill Herrion, who had
been highly successful at Drexel.
Herrion's personality didn't mesh with
Dooley's former players and the challenge changed dramatically when ECU
became a full member of C-USA. The program never got sufficient traction
under Herrion's guidance to compile a winning record and Holland saw enough
during a 9-19 season in 2004-05 to feel a change was needed.
Enter Stokes, a former Holland player at
Virginia, who showed progress during his tenure as head man at Virginia
Tech. As an assistant at several prominent programs, he gained a reputation
as a top recruiter.
The task at hand isn't too different from the
one Holland faced when he took over a Virginia program that had been 11-16
in 1973-74, had never won an ACC title or been to the Final Four.
"It's probably fairly similar," Holland said.
"Virginia had had some successful moments but nothing consistent against the
better teams."
Approach was the initial factor that helped
Holland turn the Cavaliers around.
"Some of my assistants told me 'These guys
can't win,' " Holland recalled. "I said we've got to treat them like they
can win. These guys have to find a way. We set to work asking them to do
things."
Current television analyst Dan Bonner, whose
senior season coincided with Holland's arrival at UVa said there was a
perceptible change in expectations from the first time the team did
calisthenics under Holland.
"They set a tone for work ethic," Holland
said.
Holland said he is encouraged because Stokes
feels he has some talent with which to work.
"They key at East Carolina is to keep working
hard and believe in what you're doing," said Dooley, now an assistant at
Kansas.
Big time recruits helped Holland get it done
at Virginia. Stokes' first ECU class will feature two junior college signees
and three freshmen. He'll have three scholarships to award next year.
Stokes likes the fact that his staff has
strong regional ties. He wants to recruit North Carolina, South Carolina and
Virginia.
"We want guys who are unselfish, who play hard
and are competitive," Stokes said.
With frontcourt performers Corey Rouse and
Mike Castro departing after the 2005-06 season, Stokes said the Pirates will
likely sign two big men and take the best player available with the third
grant.
"I like where we're headed," said Stokes, who
will be scouting upcoming AAU events in Las Vegas and Orlando.
In Stokes' favor in terms of immediate
competitiveness is the fact that C-USA's basketball strength appears to have
been significantly diluted with realignment.
Consistent basketball success has eluded ECU
for decades. Perhaps the new coach's energy and focus plus direction from
his former mentor will be an effective combination.
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02/23/2007 12:33:18 AM
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