I don't know enough about ECU to know if I should even be worried. And if I should, what aspects of the game should I be worried about?
With the Jekyll and Hyde identity of this team, I worry about everybody. Will we ever put together a squad where we fans can just sit back and relax, and enjoy our team playing well on a consistent basis? In that aspect, I envy fans of South Carolina, UConn, Stanford, KM era Baylor, etc.
I decided to compare the two teams side-by-side and it has me a bit worried. They seem to have some of the defensive (steals, forced turnovers) numbers that Texas had at the beginning of the season. Looks like they're a bunch of shorter, faster, ball-poking players than our team. But they also are loose with their possessions as well. The numbers below are their NCAA ranking in each category.
WOW!!! Deleting post because I scouted the Colgate Women's roster instead of ECU. I must be getting old, conflating the men's and women's opponents like that. Yowza.
E.C.Shooting: 37.8% from the floor 23.4% from 3 62.6% from the stripe (So not too spiffy) Texas Shooting: 44.6% from the floor 34.0% from 3 67.9% from the stripe East Carolina Pirates Schedule: vs South Carolina State W71-35 vs Wake Forest L57-46 vs UNC Wilmington W76-49 vs High Point W65-54 OT vs Charleston Southern W64-31 vs Liberty W72-64 @ Virginia L72-50 @ George Mason L54-41 vs VCU W69-51 vs Maryland-Eastern Shore W67-41 @ Gardner-Webb L67-59 vs North Carolina A&T W79-49 @ Hampton W64-60 vs Tulsa L55-47 @ Memphis W55-47 vs Tulane W63-53 @ Temple W72-51 @ SMU L68-66 vs Cincinnati W61-53 @ Wichita State W66-57 vs Memphis L61-53 @ South Florida L72-48 @ UCF W68-54 vs Temple W67-52 vs Wichita State W79-62 @ Cincinnati W68-57 vs UCF W63-57 vs Houston W88-83 3OT @ Tulane L64-56 vs Tulane W69-58 vs Memphis W69-60 vs Houston W46-44 Their level of competition is certainly not the same as ours, but an impressive number of wins.
A cautionary tale from the men's tournament (Dallas Morning News report): "In one of the worst performances this season, the No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies lost 76-59 against the tenth-seeded Penn State Nittany Lions and exited the NCAA Tournament in the first round ... Andrew Funk had the shooting game of his career on Penn State’s biggest stage in more than two decades ... Funk went 8 of 10 on 3-pointers and scored 27 points in the Nittany Lions’ first NCAA Tournament victory in 22 years ... The loss also prevents the Aggies from playing No. 2 seed Texas in the second round ..." We're not Aggies, mercifully, but it's the time of year when we have to show up ready to play in every game. Not sure why I'm more hyper than usual about the first/early rounds this year. In Vic we trust. And Rori.
Fortunately Andrew Funk won't be playing against Vic and Rori, but I do have some concerns about him playing against Terry and Carr.
Another way of looking at this is: 1. ECU came in third in the AAC behind Houston and Memphis 2. ECU got a bid for the NCAAs because they won the AAC tournament (although their record would have probably gotten them in anyway) If the team can guard against the 3, we should be okay. A 12-8 first quarter would be nice.
Sonya Morris is with the team. She was just on Aaliyah Moore’s live taking team photos. She came to the camera and said “I’m back”. I can finally get sleep now but she did have a leg brace on. Not a boot more of a compression type of brace.
Sonya (next to Taylor) is moving really well as the ladies open practice with what sounds like the Dropkick Murphys. She’s never been fast and running next to Shay doesn't help but you can tell she’s not at 100%.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Sonya’s return, but I’m sure she’ll be on some sort of limited minutes. Will be interesting to see if she starts or comes off the bench tonight. PSA: in case you have the same plan as myself. I’ve decided to attend the first game and listen to the men’s game on the Longhorn radio broadcast. When I went to see what time the broadcast starts (6:00 pm) on the Texas Athletics schedule, it said it’s through “The Varsity Network App” so I downloaded it and got signed up ahead of time.
Why is it our games get a delayed start so often? Very frustrating. I hope they mean tip time is 9:15 and not 10:15.
Well we just got a makeup bailout call on the other end after Gaston dribbled herself into a poor spot and just chucked it up.
Love to see Morris out there. I for sure didn’t think she would be playing since she was limited in practice.
#23 for ECU has a horrible attitude she did a motion that Texas is paying the refs don’t in his face. Surprised she hasn’t gotten a tech yet. Does have potential though if she can get her attitude in check.