East Carolina's chances for its first
winning season in basketball since 1996-97 took a severe hit with
a 76-62 loss to Marshall in
Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on Wednesday night.
The Thundering Herd jumped out to a
12-0 lead and never trailed in taking its first Conference USA road win
of the season. Marshall swept its regular season series with the
Pirates, following up on a
72-64 victory in Huntington on
Jan. 10.
ECU coach Mack McCarthy indicated that
his players didn't match Marshall's intensity.
"They played harder on offense than we
did on defense and on the other end I thought they played harder, too,"
McCarthy said. "That hasn't really happened a lot this year to this
basketball team. We were coming off a really solid performance at Tulsa,
but we did not build on that tonight at all."
The Pirates traditionally have been
much stronger at home than on the road and that pattern has held true
this season. ECU managed to lead 39-33 at the half against the Golden
Hurricane with 53.8 percent shooting in the first 20 minutes but the
Pirates hit just 21.2 percent in the second half as Tulsa rallied for a
72-62 win.
ECU is 10-5 at home this season and 3-9
on the road. The Pirates are 4-3 in C-USA home games and 1-6 in away
games in league play.
The tendency to play better at home
added to the disappointment of the loss to Marshall (13-15, 5-8). ECU
went into the game seeking a school record sixth C-USA win in a season.
The Thundering Herd used some hot
shooting to take a 39-28 lead at the half, connecting on 51.6 percent of
its first half field goal attempts. That number included six of 13 from
behind the arc for 46.2 percent. Marshall had just two turnovers before
halftime and committed only five for the game.
"Our defense wasn't good," McCarthy
said. "When we helped, we didn't get rotation. When we got rotation, it
was one guy rotating, but the next guy didn't. Because they got off to
the lead, they were able to really toy with us on that end. They were
patient enough offensively to keep the ball moving until we broke down
defensively.
"We're like a lot of teams in that we
play with a little more energy and a little more intensity when we're
making shots. And we never got to the point tonight when we were making
shots on a regular basis."
The Pirates had been averaging 23
attempts per game from three-point land but made only four of 12 for
33.3 percent against Marshall. That was slightly below ECU's 37.9
percent connection rate on threes for the season.
"More and more teams have tried to take
the three-pointer away from us," McCarthy said. "Normally the answer is
getting stops and getting out in transition and making some when you
have a numbers advantage. Because we weren't getting any stops or enough
consecutive stops, we never really beat them back down the floor. The
times where we did get a stop, they did a really nice job in transition
of spreading out and locating the shooters.
"Because they played a smaller lineup
with a lot of perimeter players they were able to switch on the
perimeter. You can take the threes away if you're willing to switch on
the perimeter."
While Marshall devoted its defensive
emphasis to ECU's perimeter and limited national leader Brock Young to
just four assists, the Pirates did get some solid production in the
paint.
Sophomore center Chad Wynn made six of
his field goal attempts and all four of his free throws for 16 points.
His personal production was small consolation in the loss.
"We have to come out with more effort,"
Wynn said. "We're embarrassed individually, as a team, for the program
and for all of ECU. They all deserve to see us play harder than we did
tonight. We have one home game left to come out and play hard for the
fans and for us.
"We're down to the last game and we
can't lose on Senior Night."
Freshman power forward Darrius Morrow
had 15 points and seven rebounds to supplement the Pirates' inside
punch.
The outcome dropped ECU to 13-14
overall with just two regular season contests remaining. The Pirates
host UAB on Saturday at 7 p.m. and then have a week to prepare for the
regular season finale at Central Florida on March 7.
The Blazers are in good position for a
first-round bye in the Conference USA Tournament. The byes are accorded
to the top four clubs in the final regular-season standings for the
12-team league. UAB will be coming off an emotional matchup with Memphis
in Birmingham on Thursday night (9 p.m., ESPN2).
The game with the Blazers this weekend
will be Senior Night for ECU scorers Sam Hinnant and James Legan.
ECU has shown the ability to rise to
the occasion on Senior Night the last two seasons,
topping Texas-El Paso 79-78 in
2007 and
edging Houston 84-83 last year.
The challenge of achieving a winning
season aside, the Pirate program is making progress. ECU hasn't had 13
wins since the 2003-04 season. The win total was just six the season
before McCarthy took the reins in 2007-08 and guided the Pirates to an
11-19 record.
McCarthy was trying to factor in the
improvement as he dealt with the feeling that the Pirates let a good
chance at a "W" get away on Wednesday night.
"They've done so many good things,"
said the ECU coach. "It's hard to be angry when you step back and look
with a little perspective about the things that they've done this year.
We've really missed some opportunities that we needed to cash in on.
"We've had three different chances to
get to .500 in the league and we blew them. We had a chance to stay over
.500 overall tonight and we didn't do that. There has to be a little bit
more of a sense of urgency in all phases of a student-athlete's life,
but I think we really missed an opportunity (against Marshall)."