State Line Hoops Report©: Dance tickets falling into place

©2003 Bonesville.net

For the first time since the controversy arose over Conference USA and ESPN shifting East Carolina’s home football game with Cincinnati to Friday night, Dec. 6, ECU athletics director Mike Hamrick and NCHSAA executive director Charlie Adams had a chance to sit down and talk, face to face, in a fence-mending sort of way.

Hamrick had said ECU wouldn’t play a Friday night game after the situation had threatened to develop in the 2001 season but had to change his stance due to circumstances generated by C-USA and ESPN. Hamrick didn’t notify the NCHSAA before the Friday night kickoff was announced and Adams took the position that it would be detrimental to the high school playoffs.

Ultimately, icy conditions resulted in the postponement of many of the high school games scheduled for Dec. 6.

The occasion for the informal Adams-Hamrick summit meeting was the NCHSAA Eastern regionals, for which Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum was the site of the boys playoffs. Adams was on hand to present trophies to the winners of the four classifications on Saturday.

Adams, an ECU graduate who played basketball for the Pirates from 1956 to 1959, was inducted into the ECU athletics hall of fame in 1991.

“I had a long talk with Charlie in the Murphy Center hospitality room,” Hamrick said. “He kind of told me how pleased he was with the tournament and we both agreed that we needed to work together.

“He said some things he needed to say and I said some things I needed to say. We both said we understood where each other were coming from. It was a good conversation.”

Greenville's Down East location remains a barrier to ECU hosting a state championship game in football.

“Charlie has indicated it’s strictly geographics and I don’t have an issue with that at all,” Hamrick said.

On Monday, the ECU athletics department hosted a luncheon at the Murphy Center for all the coaches, athletics directors, principals and assistant coaches who were involved in the high school regionals and the NCHSAA asked Hamrick to introduce the coaches at that function.

“Charlie and I are back on the same page,” Hamrick said. “He was very appreciative of the job we were doing on the regionals and we’re very appreciative of them having the playoffs here.”

Many of the high school coaches expressed gratitude for the big-time treatment they received at ECU. Pirates game management turned down the lights to introduce the starting lineups in a similar fashion to ECU games.

ECU will announce a new mark, probably next month, of a skull with a kind of hat on it. ... New football coach John Thompson is packing them in on the Pirate Club banquet circuit, which made stops last week in Wilson, Williamston and Elizabeth City. A meeting is scheduled for tonight in Sanford. ... The American Division in which ECU played in basketball was 20-8 against the National Division this year in Conference USA. ... ECU basketball coach Bill Herrion flew to Salinas, Kansas, on Saturday night to scout prospective players at a junior college tournament this week. ... Rumors are circulating that N.C. State coach Chuck Amato may have spoken with former ECU coach Steve Logan about the Wolfpack’s vacant offensive coordinator position.

The fact that the ACC may get only three teams into the NCAA Tournament this year lends credence to the notion that Conference USA is comparable in terms of competitiveness this season. Wake Forest, Duke and Maryland have their dance cards punched. So, apparently, do Marquette, Louisville and Memphis. There are bubble teams in each league and automatic berths for the respective conference tournament champions. Wake, the ACC regular season champion, has one non-conference loss — at Marquette.

Congratulations go to UNC-Asheville for winning the Big South Conference championship and advancing to the NCAA Tournament. UNC Wilmington goes for its third trip to the big dance in four years in the Colonial Athletic Association final in Richmond, Va., tonight against Drexel, the program Bill Herrion formerly coached. Some surprises on the final weekend of ACC play adds anticipation for the league tournament this weekend in Greensboro. Who would have thought Wake Forest would win the regular season title by two games? Congratulations to North Carolina A&T for avoiding a winless season. Here’s how the Division I teams in the Carolinas stack up: