You might have been wondering when was the last time East
Carolina was limited to 42 points in a basketball game as was the case in a
55-42 loss at DePaul on Sunday afternoon.
Actually, it wasn’t that long ago — Feb. 19, 2002 — when the
Pirates were trounced 75-42 at Louisville just last season.
Poor shooting was a common malady contributing to both of
the anemic point totals.
ECU managed to make just 12 of 45 field goal attempts last
season at Freedom Hall, 26.6 percent. The numbers were slightly better at
Allstate Arena on Sunday with ECU making16 of 52 from the field for 30.8
percent. The Pirates were 2 for 13 behind the arc, a frigid 15.4 percent.
The numbers at the line, 8 for 13 (61.5 percent), weren’t
spectacular either.
“We just didn’t put the ball in the basket,” Pirates coach
Bill Herrion said after ECU fell to 0-10 over two seasons when playing away
from Williams Arena in Minges Coliseum in Conference USA.
ECU had too many prime time players fail to produce at the
offensive end at DePaul.
Erroyl Bing, a junior forward who was last year’s leading
scorer for the Pirates with a 12.6 average, had one point against the Blue
Demons. He didn’t score last week at Charlotte. That means he’s tallied one
point in ECU’s two Conference USA road games this season.
Freshman guard Belton Rivers didn’t start for the first time
in his college career. Herrion wanted to play some zone at the DePaul and
went big across the frontline with Bing, Gabriel Mikulas and Moussa Badiane.
Derrick Wiley moved from small forward and started at the
wing guard spot where Rivers has been playing. Senior Travis Holcomb-Faye
made his first start at point guard since he was suspended by Herrion for
academic reasons after ECU’s 7-0 start.
The Pirates are now 10-5 and 1-3 in C-USA with league power
Cincinnati coming in for a 7 p.m. tipoff on Wednesday night. It would be a
good time for the Pirates to regain their shooting touch.
Poor shooting can generally be attributed to taking too many
bad shots or missing too many good ones. The latter appears to have been the
problem for the Pirates on Sunday.
“We had a lot of opportunities around the basket,” Herrion
said. “We just didn’t put the ball in the hole.”
Holcomb-Faye was 1 of 9 from the field for 3 points. Bing,
Rivers, Holcomb-Faye and junior college transfer Luke MacKay played a total
of 91 minutes and had a total of four points. The quartet was a combined 1
for 20 from the field.
Bing did have a team-high 10 rebounds and Holcomb-Faye had
nine assists but only Miklulas had a respectable shooting day, 7 of 11 from
the floor.
The team’s 7-0 start this season that included some
impressive wins generated a lot of excitement around the program, as did a
73-70 win over No. 12 Marquette on Dec. 30. But the Pirates are 1-3 in the
New Year with the win coming against a struggling Division II Pembroke team.
Herrion said after last week’s 87-70 loss to Louisville he
was concerned about the attitude and effort of some players in practice.
The goal is postseason play, the NIT or the NCAA Tournament,
but the reality is that the Pirates haven’t had a winning season in five
years and things definitely appear to be headed in the wrong direction at
the moment.
The Pirates need to get their act together. C-USA is tough
enough without internal situations to deal with.
