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BAILEY'S TAKE
ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the Anchor Desk
Tuesday, November 10, 2008
By Brian Bailey |
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McCarthy nurturing
youth movement
By
Brian Bailey
©2009 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
The older I get, the
faster football season
flies by. It can’t be
basketball season this
week, can it?
Apparently it can!
East Carolina opens the
2009-10 season
with a home game on
Friday night against the
University of
Virginia-Wise. The
Pirates then hop on a
bus on Sunday to
Greensboro, to take on
ACC power Wake Forest.
Coach Mack McCarthy and
his Pirates showed great
improvement last year,
but ended the season on
a six-game losing skid.
That bad taste has
provided a springboard
for work during the off
season.
The goal this year is to
turn that 13-17 mark
into a winning season.
Coach Mac has several
talented newcomers to
help the nucleus of this
building block. The trio
of Brock Young, Jamar
Abrams and Darrius
Morrow form the core of
what Coach Mac hopes is
a winning formula.
The return of a healthy
DaQuan Joyner will
certainly help as well.
The
schedule
is a difficult one. It
includes both Wake and
Tennessee in November.
It all starts on Friday
night, with McCarthy and
the Pirates hosting NAIA
member Virginia-Wise.
“We aren’t ready,” said
McCarthy. “But they are
going to play the game
regardless. Our guys are
anxious to play, but our
guys really aren’t ready
to play yet.
"We have a very young
basketball team. There’s
no question that we’ll
be better in January and
February. They kind of
have to see the end game
here. They have to know
that the goal is to keep
on getting better.
"We would love to be as
good as we can be from
the get go, but the
truth is we are going to
struggle a little bit.”
I asked Coach Mac about
his scheduling
philosophy. He said it’s
simply a matter of
different strokes for
different folks.
“There are a lot of
different ways to do
scheduling,” he
explained. “Scheduling
is an art form in
itself. We choose to
play scrimmages with
Division I opponents in
lieu of exhibition games
and then play what would
look like exhibitions as
regular season games.
There are a lot of
reasons to do that.
"Yes, there will be a
big jump in our
opponent’s ability from
Friday night to Sunday
afternoon. We’ve got to
be ready to play every
single time out.”
UVa-Wise has wins over
Alice Lloyd College and
Shawnee State so far
this season. The
Highland Cavaliers are
an NAIA program from the
Appalachian Athletic
Conference.
Wake Forest, on the
other hand, is a
national power from the
Atlantic Coast
Conference. The Deacs
open their season
against Oral Roberts on
Friday night.
Wake Forest beat IUP —
Indiana University of
Pennsylvania — 88-57 in
the team’s only
exhibition game of the
preseason. The same IUP
team lost to Maryland
from the ACC 75-54, and
to Georgia Tech in
overtime 84-76.
The Pirates meet Wake
Forest on Sunday
afternoon at the
Greensboro Coliseum.
“I know a lot about Wake
Forest,” said McCarthy.
“They lost two first
round draft choices but
they’ve probably got a
couple of more in the
stable. They have a
really good basketball
team. They have a team
that I wouldn’t be
surprised at all if they
were ranked in the Top
10 at some point this
season.”
There are no moral
victories. East Carolina
will be a big favorite
against UVA-Wise, but an
even bigger underdog in
Greensboro against Wake
Forest.
“We just want to play as
well as we can every
time out,” said Coach
McCarthy. “The wins and
losses will take care of
themselves. We fully
expect to compete each
and every time we hit
the floor to play a
game.”
The Pirates then play at
Campbell next Tuesday
night before heading to
St. Thomas and the
Virgin Islands where
they’ll open
Paradise Jam
tournament play against
Tennessee.
This will be a fun team
to watch and should be a
team that does get
better as the season
progresses.
BB
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Brian Bailey.
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