East Carolina

[Queens_NYC]

Wednesday, January 12th, 2022
7:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN+

The Pirates (10-4, 1-1 AAC, NET #154, KenPom #157) are looking to build on a strong start to the season and finish with a winning record for the first time in 9 years, or at worst, secure 15 wins for the first time in 5 years.

Also, for the first time since the introduction of NET in 2018, a win over ECU tonight at home would count as a Q3 victory for the Bearcats. 9 of East Carolina's 10 victories have counted as Q4 wins, with their only Q3 win (coincidentally) coming against Tulane at home in OT. For that reason, it should come as no surprise that ECU has the weakest SOS in the conference by a large margin.

The Pirates don't have a deep bench, but their primary line-ups feature some big guards, such as 6'5 Tristen Newton who leads the team in scoring (18.2 ppg) and assists (5.1 apg) and 6'7 JJ Miles who makes 40% of his 3-point attempts.

The Pirates as a team shoot the 3 ball well at just under 37%. Their best 3-point shooter is 6'9 Vance Jackson (40.2%), who debuted at UConn in the fall of 2016, then made pit stops at New Mexico and Arkansas before grad transferring to ECU this year.

Despite losing at Temple by a buzzer-beater 3 on Sunday, ECU is currently 10.5 point underdogs to the Bearcats.

 

[waterhead]

I would like to see the confidence keep building in MAW and Newman to take a little bit of the load off DD and JD. Also would like to see Ody get a few more minutes at the 5 mainly (if he can stay on the court).

That's about it for me

 

[sedziobs]

If you had to draw up the most average college basketball team possible, it would look a lot like East Carolina. They rank between 99 and 191 in each of the Four Factors on offense and defense. They don't do anything really well, they don't do anything bad, they just play average basketball.

The one non-efficiency stat that stands out is assist rate, where ECU ranks in the top 10 nationally. Most of that comes from Tristan Newton and his incredible 34.9 assist rate. He also leads the team in shot attempts, usage rate, effective field goal percentage, and ORtg (among 10+ min players). His shooting split is 57-35-88. Statistically he is very similar to Kendric Davis.

Keys to the game will be containing Newton without helping off of 40% three point shooters Vance Jackson and JJ Miles, and getting the ball to the rim on offense. In most of ECU's poor defensive games, they gave up either a ton of looks or a very high percentage at the rim (16-18 vs Temple, 19-29 vs Liberty, 16-34 vs NC A&T, 15-29 vs Coppin St, 11-12 vs Oklahoma).

 

[waterhead]

If you had to draw up the most average college basketball team possible, it would look a lot like East Carolina. They rank between 99 and 191 in each of the Four Factors on offense and defense. They don't do anything really well, they don't do anything bad, they just play average basketball.

The one non-efficiency stat that stands out is assist rate, where ECU ranks in the top 10 nationally. Most of that comes from Tristan Newton and his incredible 34.9 assist rate. He also leads the team in shot attempts, usage rate, effective field goal percentage, and ORtg (among 10+ min players). His shooting split is 57-35-88. Statistically he is very similar to Kendric Davis.

Keys to the game will be containing Newton without helping off of 40% three point shooters Vance Jackson and JJ Miles, and getting the ball to the rim on offense. In most of ECU's poor defensive games, they gave up either a ton of looks or a very high percentage at the rim (16-18 vs Temple, 19-29 vs Liberty, 16-34 vs NC A&T, 15-29 vs Coppin St, 11-12 vs Oklahoma).

Newton meet Newman!!

 

[Queens_NYC]

If you had to draw up the most average college basketball team possible, it would look a lot like East Carolina.

That might be the greatest compliment anyone has given their program in a long time.

 

[waterhead]

That might be the greatest compliment anyone has given their program in a long time.

Too late to put that on their bulletin board but I love it!!

The Most Average Team award goes to...

 

[skyblade]

Off to a great start, they've gone after Davenport in the interior and he has more than held his own. Defense is really tight and it seems to be bothering ECU.

Only concern thus far is foul trouble, Newman has two (though I'm not sure what that tech on him was) and Ody has two.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Nice to see Hensley play aggressively on offense

 

[skyblade]

Refs a bit whistle happy, at this rate the game is going to last 3 hours.

 

[skyblade]

Ado still hasn't come back out of the locker room. Might be out with that ankle injury.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Seems like Saunders gets a little ball hog sometimes. Like you can definitely tell when he is gonna force something.

 

[skyblade]

Offense has gone dead silent in the 2nd half. 6 points in over 8 minutes. Just not moving the ball well or getting good shot selection.

ECU meanwhile is getting good shots.

Seems like we thought it was over at half time and ECU came out to keep playing.

 

[skyblade]

Davenport has taken so many bad threes this half. He made the one that was actually a good shot.

 

[Lawrugby]

Per T Nell we are not very good when Dejulius is off.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Very sloppy 2nd half. Luckily we got our act together over the final 3 minutes and the outcome was never in doubt.

Surprised that we didn't see much of Madsen in the 2nd half.

 

[sedziobs]

We did a great job guarding Newton tonight. It was a team effort, with DDJ, MAW, and Newman each getting a lot of possessions assigned to him. We held him to 4-11 shooting with 4 assists and 4 turnovers. Jackson was hitting everything inside and out though. Overall a good defensive game.

The offense as usual was up and down depending on jump shots. In the first half I thought we did a good job attacking the basket which created open looks from outside too. We even ran some action looking to get bigs the ball down low. DDJ, MAW, and Saunders combined for 15 assists and 1 turnover. In the second half we reverted to hero ball with poor shot selection. We ended up 13-21 at the rim, which is just ok against an undersized interior.

I was happy to see some flashes of offensive schemes. It shows we have the potential to be a decent offense if we focus on it.

 

[skyblade]

Ody has been really starting to look solid down low. Koval had a couple of nice cuts to get open down low as well, playing him in a 5 out scheme might be possible. The first half offense looked excellent. Our offense is starting show extended periods of good play.

But in the second half, we just stopped all that and started playing hero ball. Davenport set the tone by taking a series of bad threes and it went downhill from there. The defense was also fairly bad in the second half. Hopefully this game helps teach the guys that we have to play a full game.

Plenty for Wes Miller to teach, but we got a win.

 

[skyblade]

Very sloppy 2nd half. Luckily we got our act together over the final 3 minutes and the outcome was never in doubt.

Surprised that we didn't see much of Madsen in the 2nd half.

It seems like Miller really tightens the rotations in the second half. First half he subs like crazy, second half he likes to keep the starters on as much as possible, though the end of game offense/defense with Koval/Ado was a bit of a new wrinkle.

Part of why Madsen got such a long run is Newman racking up two quick fouls, in the second half Newman stayed out of foul trouble and barely came out.

 

[waterhead]

Ody has been really starting to look solid down low. Koval had a couple of nice cuts to get open down low as well, playing him in a 5 out scheme might be possible. The first half offense looked excellent. Our offense is starting show extended periods of good play.

But in the second half, we just stopped all that and started playing hero ball. Davenport set the tone by taking a series of bad threes and it went downhill from there. The defense was also fairly bad in the second half. Hopefully this game helps teach the guys that we have to play a full game.

Plenty for Wes Miller to teach, but we got a win.

Ody could really be a great option for us. He knows how to get his shot off down low and usually it's in or rattles around. He's mobile enough to be out on perimeter on D. He rebounds well. He can jump out the gym for a big.

He also fouls a lot. And I haven't watched closely enough to see how often he is out of place...but I would like to see him get more time. He and Vik can get the ball in the bucket down low...but Vik gets stripped a lot and Ody does not. His plus minus is the best of the bigs. Wes just needs to slow him down a bit and teach him how to play D without fouling.

He's a good candidate for a breakout player next year. Hopefully Wes can work out the bugs this year. He's fun to watch and easy to root for with his energy.

 

[waterhead]

We did a great job guarding Newton tonight. It was a team effort, with DDJ, MAW, and Newman each getting a lot of possessions assigned to him. We held him to 4-11 shooting with 4 assists and 4 turnovers. Jackson was hitting everything inside and out though. Overall a good defensive game.

The offense as usual was up and down depending on jump shots. In the first half I thought we did a good job attacking the basket which created open looks from outside too. We even ran some action looking to get bigs the ball down low. DDJ, MAW, and Saunders combined for 15 assists and 1 turnover. In the second half we reverted to hero ball with poor shot selection. We ended up 13-21 at the rim, which is just ok against an undersized interior.

I was happy to see some flashes of offensive schemes. It shows we have the potential to be a decent offense if we focus on it.

Our 17 assists came from just 4 players. Mike has been 18-4 in his last 3 games. For a 4.25 to 1 ratio. MAW has been great all year leading the nation by a decent margin right now over Tyger Campbell almost by 1 full point.

MAW has really been coming on strong. Making shots and keeping his TO's to a minimum while dishing out dimes. He's really turned it around after a cold streak and I hope that continues as it's been key to our recent success.

Newman has been rock solid as well for the most part. MAW and Newman getting a few points while playing some great D allows us to put our best lineup out there without limiting scoring too much. Those two guys lead the starters in plus minus by a significant margin. They are the best two way players if they can continue to get us 10-12 points (or more) a night as they have been recently (past few games).