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Pirate Notebook No. 44
Monday, January 21, 2002

By Denny O'Brien
Staff Writer and Columnist

Travis Holcomb-Faye is a free-spirited individual. He'll be the first to tell you that.

With his free-flowing locks, colorful tattoos, and sleek physique, the Winston-Salem junior looks more suited for a GAP commercial than a starting spot in the East Carolina basketball line-up.

But looks can be deceiving, and Holcomb-Faye is no exception. Off the court he may have the easy-going appearance of a teenage icon, but on the court, he is all business. The 6-1, 175-pound point guard has developed into an innovative playmaker, one who continues to improve with each game.

Holcomb-Faye was given the reigns to the Pirates' offense midway through his freshman season and had plenty of ups and downs during his first two years. Now, third-year head coach Bill Herrion expects a lot out of his lead guard, evidenced by a conversation held between the two prior to the Louisville game.

"Coach pulled me to the side before the game," Holcomb-Faye said . "He (Herrion) said 'Travis, you can't give the ball away tonight. You can't turn the ball over under pressure. You've got to be real aggressive with the press and make things happen for us to win.'"

The hear-to-heart between coach and player must have worked. Holcomb-Faye led the Pirates in both scoring and assists, with 20 and 9, respectively, while committing just three turnovers in the 10-point victory.

The performance got a thumbs up from Herrion, who gave Holcomb-Faye high marks for playing an almost flawless game.

"Anytime you play against a team coached by Rick Pitino, you've got to handle the pressure," Herrion said. "Our kids did an unbelievable job handling the full-court pressure. I thought Travis Holcomb-Faye might have played his best floor game since he's been here."

Ball-handling has never been an issue for Holcomb-Faye, who has committed 17 less turnovers than assists this year. With quickness, vision, and control, the Winston-Salem product is the Pirates' best when it comes to managing the floor.

Holcomb-Faye can more than hold his own on defense, too. Opposing point guards rarely penetrate the lane with ease and seldom find themselves free for an open jumper.

But one area that needed marked improvement this season was Holcomb-Faye's ability to knock down the open shot. With inside workhorses like Gabriel Mikulas and Erroyl Bing, it is imperative that the ECU point guard be a credible threat to hit from outside, freeing the dynamic frontcourt from double-teams.

After two seasons of struggling with his shot, it appears that Holcomb-Faye is beginning to find his mark., which is having a positive effect on his teammates as well.

"Last year my man would leave me and go double on Gabe and he'd kick the ball out, and I wasn't able to make the shot," he said. "This year, Gabe has a little more room to go one-on-one, because my man is not leaving me."

Over the last three games, Holcomb-Faye has hit 50 percent of his three-point attempts. Against Louisville, he nailed six of ten from the floor, including two of four from behind the arc.

Overall, Holcomb-Faye has 14 treys on the season, which is just two less than the 16 he converted all of last year. Although his three-point shooting percentage is just marginally better at 34 percent, Holcomb-Faye's willingness to take the open shot is forcing the opposition to defend him from three-point land.

Holcomb-Faye attributes much of the improvement in his point-scoring ability to the early-season absence of Mikulas, which forced the point guard to assert himself offensively. While the Pirates' top offensive threat was serving a 13-game suspension, Holcomb-Faye and the rest of the Pirates were learning to fend for themselves, getting off to a great start in the BCA Invitational.

"When we beat Rutgers and Northwestern at the beginning of the year without Gabe (Mikulas), we were like 'we're a good team � we can beat anybody,'" Holcomb-Faye said. "Gabe is the best player on our team, and everybody knows that.

"But playing without him the first 13 games, I think it helped us a lot, because other people had to step up. Erroyl Bing stepped up a lot when Gabe was gone, and that's helped him."

Lately, though, it has been Holcomb-Faye who's markedly stepped up his play � and with the Pirates swimming deeper into C-USA play, he couldn't have picked a better time.

Nobody questions the notion that ECU's win over Louisville last Wednesday night was the biggest since Herrion arrived in Greenville. But prior to that, the coach had plenty of eye-opening victories at Drexel, including a victory over Memphis in the NCAA tournament that propelled the Dragons into the Sweet 16.

Following the Pirates most recent win, Herrion was asked to compare ECU's upset of Rick Pitino and the Cardinals with Drexel's victory over the Tigers in the Big Dance. Without flinching, Herrion charmed the media with his victorious wit.

Nonetheless, Herrion doesn't dismiss the importance of the Pirates' win over the storied U of L program, which was accentuated by the students' reaction as time expired. It was a nice change of pace for Herrion and his players, who had become accustomed to sparse crowds during ECU's last two seasons in the CAA.

"What I'm more proud of with this win is what happened at the end of the game," Herrion said. "When those students ran on the court � that's what it's all about. That's what I've been waiting for at East Carolina."

Now, Herrion says the Pirates need to build on that landmark victory by putting forth consistent efforts game-after-game. That had been the trend leading up to Saturday's 13-point loss at Saint Louis in which ECU turned the ball over 20 times.

The Pirates did manage to hold a substantial 45-29 edge on the glass against the Billikens, but shot just 39.7 percent from the field. That was a very disappointing statistic, considering the Pirates notched a 50 percent shooting effort against Louisville.

If the Pirates are to achieve many of their goals this season, Herrion knows they must strive to maintain a certain level of consistency in all phases of the game. If the team's victory last week over Louisville is any indication, ECU is capable of achieving its primary regular-season objective.

"Our goal right now is we want to get to the conference tournament," Herrion said. "We don't want to be one of the two teams left behind, because once you get to the tournament, anything can happen.

"Saint Louis got there, I think, two years ago as the last seed and won four straight days and went to the NCAA tournament. That's our goal � we want to get to the conference tournament."

Before the season began, few expected the Pirates to make it to Cincinnati for the league tourney. Most predicted East Carolina to finish in the cellar of the C-USA American Division � the spot currently held by DePaul, which travels to Greenville on Wednesday.

A win by the Pirates could go a long way toward securing a spot in Cincinnati, which would be a nice accomplishment for a very young team.

"This is definitely going in the right direction," Herrion said. "We've got good young players. We're playing lots of freshmen and sophomores. Kids like Mikulas, Bing, and Moussa (Badiane) � these guys are just going to get better and better as they get older and get stronger."

For the time being, though, Herrion would like for his talented you players to be a little more consistent. Consistently good.