Article Jackets Host ECU on Friday

Jackets Host ECU on Friday

Josh Pastner’s Jackets to host ECU on 11/16

Fresh off a hard fought game against Tennessee, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets will host the Eastern Carolina Pirates on Friday night. The game will be broadcast on ACCNE at 7:30pm.

So who is Eastern Carolina? Well aside from being the largest school in North Carolina and being known as the NC “party school”, they are currently making their way into the conversation as the up and coming program in the American Athletic Conference. The ECU program made a fantastic hire during the offseason, luring Florida Gulf Coast coach Joe Dooley away from Fort Myers.

Dooley spent time in the Bill Self coaching tree prior to his hiring at FGCU. He was widely known to be one of the Jayhawk’s most effective recruiters early in the Self era, credited with landing players such as Cole Aldrich, Tyshawn Taylor and Mario Chalmers. In 2013 he left Lawrence for Fort Myers for his second head coaching position, replacing Andy Enfield after he departed for USC. In five seasons at FGCU he made the NCAA tournament twice and the NIT twice. He won 21 games or more in all five seasons and never finished worse than second in the Atlantic Sun Conference. He departed the Eagles with a 114-58 record.

The interesting thing about Dooley is that he was actually the Head Coach of the Pirates before this season. He led the purple and black from 1995-1999 after Eddie Payne departed for Oregon State. During his first stint at ECU, Dooley went 57-52.

The Pirates come into the GT game with a 2-1 record, averaging 79 points per game. ECU also played Lamar early in the 2018-19 season, a game in which they needed overtime to win. ECU has an ACC flavor as Dooley brought on former Virginia Tech Assistant Coach Steve Roccaforte, who in turn brought former Hokie Seth LeDay with him. He’s also bringing former Hokies Tyrie Jackson and Khadim Sy in for the 2019 class.

LeDay has led the Pirates through the first three games, averaging 16.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Freshman Jayden Gardner and sophomore K.J. Davis give Dooley a nice duo to back up LeDay, combining to score 25 points and snag better than 12 rebounds per contest early in the 2018-19 season.

The straw that stirs the drink is senior point guard Isaac Fleming. The former Hawaii Rainbow Warrior has been a fantastic addition to the Pirate program, averaging 12.2 points, 4.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game through 33 games. Fleming is solid but does not provide an outside threat, shooting less than 28% from deep over the course of his career.

Strangely enough, one of Georgia’s own is the player that concerns me. Freshman Tae Hardy, a Miller Grove product, has played well early for the Pirates. The 6’3″ guard averages 9 points, 2.7 rebounds, an assist and a steal per game early in his career. He likes to jump passing lanes and get out in the open court. He could be a huge X-factor in this game.

At the end of the day it’s hard to predict what we will see here. This is a new coach with a new program who has yet to stock the pond with his players. Dooley keeps the tempo pretty low and doesn’t historically play a ton of defense (according to KenPom).

Given the most recent performance by the Jackets against Tennessee, I can’t imagine the spread is going to be crazy. I do like the Jackets to cover in this contest if the spread is set at single digits. East Carolina is not Tennessee. I think this is the game where Jose Alvarado and Shembarri Phillips both get right.

 

[MtnWasp]

I was desperately trying not to mention Hewitt as his stated goal was pretty similar to what I described. But I agree with you he put way too much pressure/importance on the PG to initiate the offense by beating his guy off the dribble. That is why his offense generally sucked.

I also agree with you that Devoe is likely the bell cow for this year's offense. He certainly comes with the pedigree to be an ACC scorer. I haven't seen a ton last year or this but he doesn't strike me as a Reddick type catch and shoot guy you have to engineer shots for but rather a shooter who can slash when given a slightly assisted chance. So this leads me to why I think Tennessee is an important data point. Not that I thought we would win - and in fact I am happy we played the tough level of D we did. We did good from my perspective. But what it showed me was we don't have players - Devoe in particular who are skilled and strong enough yet to break down above average defenders. They need help. How Pastner gets them help to generate shot opportunities or driving lanes is my question. I keep talking about Michigan or other what I consider high end perimeter based offenses that we should emulate. They are not incredibly structured offenses but they do have rules that teams follow for picks and movement that really work. I didn't see the ECU game - only radio - but I didn't see the type of movement and rules that I would hope for against Tennessee in particular (or Lamar). They are not difficult but we need to start putting them in before we play VT, Clemson or especially a UVA.

My early impression of Devoe was, "whoa, he wants the ball in his hands, he wants to create off the dribble." He has more Kenny Anderson in him than Mark Price (as archetypal comparisons). I haven't seen him much yet so maybe I am mistaken.

Tennessee just stuffed us on the perimeter. They were too big and too experienced and we are not functioning at a high enough level in what we are trying to do to compete with that when we played them. We lost confidence and couldn't even make our open shots. Teams are always a work in progress as the season progresses. Not all teams come together, but I think that our team has a greater capacity to improve than most because of our youth and newness of scheme (not to mention our defensive up-side).

I am of the bias (for college) that cohesive execution of team concepts is at least as important as individual talent (which is why we see so many really good mid-major teams). This is also why one can predict who is going to be good by just looking at who the coach is. So for me, it is not so much about who we got, but how they play together. Not saying I'm right, but that is my bias.

BTW, this is a fun thread, especially for a post ECU game thread. Thanks to all who made it that way.

 

[MtnWasp]

I agree that Moses has the athleticism, but so far his decision-making has been abysmal. He has made several horrible passes, and — since he hasn’t (yet) become a good shooter — his decisions to take medium to long range shots as often as not end up giving the ball right back to the opposing team when he chucks up bricks.


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Moses Wright is a risk taker and is inclined to be a free-wheeling player so he does look like a turnover waiting to happen. But the fact is, he has only turned the ball over 5 times in 56 minutes played. He's shooting .444 from the floor and .400 (with two banks) from 3. He's averaging 7ppg and 4.3 rpg in a little under 19 minutes.

None of that is awesome, but it isn't bad either. What I like about him is that he is an active player. He sticks his nose in there and tries to make stuff happen. He's not afraid of the ball. I like that in a player. I would rather see a player that a coach has to try to reign-in than one he has to try to motivate to get involved.

Because Wright was so raw coming into an ACC program, I am pretty stoked that he has come as far as he has. I have no idea if he will polish his game to match his athleticism, but it is worth the minutes to find out, IMO.

 

[MtnWasp]

Interesting comparing Alvarado to Corciani. I remember Chris differently but would rather see him in Jose than Hurley like I do now.

I don't recall Hurley sticking his nose in the paint like either Corchiani or Alvarado. But that was a long time ago and maybe my memory banks are corrupted ("Error...FAULTY")

 

[okiemon]

Moses Wright is a risk taker and is inclined to be a free-wheeling player so he does look like a turnover waiting to happen. But the fact is, he has only turned the ball over 5 times in 56 minutes played. He's shooting .444 from the floor and .400 (with two banks) from 3. He's averaging 7ppg and 4.3 rpg in a little under 19 minutes.

None of that is awesome, but it isn't bad either. What I like about him is that he is an active player. He sticks his nose in there and tries to make stuff happen. He's not afraid of the ball. I like that in a player. I would rather see a player that a coach has to try to reign-in than one he has to try to motivate to get involved.

Because Wright was so raw coming into an ACC program, I am pretty stoked that he has come as far as he has. I have no idea if he will polish his game to match his athleticism, but it is worth the minutes to find out, IMO.

OK, I’m sold. I just tend to cringe when he has the ball in traffic unless he’s under the basket.


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[orientalnc]

Tennessee just stuffed us on the perimeter. They were too big and too experienced and we are not functioning at a high enough level in what we are trying to do to compete with that when we played them. We lost confidence and couldn't even make our open shots. Teams are always a work in progress as the season progresses. Not all teams come together, but I think that our team has a greater capacity to improve than most because of our youth and newness of scheme (not to mention our defensive up-side).

I do not understand what you mean by this. We were down by 8 points at the half in spite of terrible shooting from everywhere on the floor. We fell behind by 15 in the second half but crawled back to trail by only 8 with less than two minutes to go. Tennessee is a good basketball team and GT played them tough right up to the end. I never thought we would win that game, but none of guys lost confidence because their shots were not falling.

I played two years at the collegiate level and admired our opponents' defense when it was tough getting open looks. But I always thought my next shot was going in. I can well imagine that is also the same with Jose and CGB and all our players.

 

[AE 87]

I do not understand what you mean by this. We were down by 8 points at the half in spite of terrible shooting from everywhere on the floor. We fell behind by 15 in the second half but crawled back to trail by only 8 with less than two minutes to go. Tennessee is a good basketball team and GT played them tough right up to the end. I never thought we would win that game, but none of guys lost confidence because their shots were not falling.

I played two years at the collegiate level and admired our opponents' defense when it was tough getting open looks. But I always thought my next shot was going in. I can well imagine that is also the same with Jose and CGB and all our players.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that he was using "confidence" as the intangible between making and missing an open shot rather than between taking or not taking the open shot. What UT was doing affected our play so that even when our guys had open looks, they missed them.

 

[MtnWasp]

We shot 27.6% from the field and 15.8% from three against TN. That is what I meant. I think they disrupted our O, we not only missed open looks, but we were more stagnant than our games against lesser opponents. I think we will look better against good competition after our guys have been playing together a little longer.

I agree we were competitive with them, but it was because we D'd-up on them.

 

[MtnWasp]

OK, I’m sold. I just tend to cringe when he has the ball in traffic unless he’s under the basket.


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There have been a few times where Wright chooses to bring the ball up the floor against pressure and the opposing guards are coming up behind him. At first I think that he is sure to get the ball poked from behind, but they don't catch him. And then he keeps dribbling into the paint and I am wondering where the heck is going??? I cringe too.

If I am not mistaken, I think you would rather Wright try to play like Kevin Garnett whereas Wright looks like he wants to play like Kevin Durant. It is a Kevin dilemma.

 

[AE 87]

We shot 27.6% from the field and 15.8% from three against TN. That is what I meant. I think they disrupted our O, we not only missed open looks, but we were more stagnant than our games against lesser opponents. I think we will look better against good competition after our guys have been playing together a little longer.

I agree we were competitive with them, but it was because we D'd-up on them.

Yeah, this week will be interesting for the purpose of playing together to look better against good competition.

The ECar team we just beat plays UTRGV, our Wednesday opponent, tonight and Prairie View, our Friday opponent, on Wednesday. UTRGV beat PrVw last week 70 to 57. So, we should have a pretty good preview before both of our games this week. I think we should be able to win both of this week's games handily.

However, next week, we face NU in the B1G challenge on Wednesday and St. Johns on Saturday. Those games will tell us if we really just played the legitimately #5 team close on a bad shooting night for us or not.

 

[orientalnc]

I could be wrong, but I suspect that he was using "confidence" as the intangible between making and missing an open shot rather than between taking or not taking the open shot. What UT was doing affected our play so that even when our guys had open looks, they missed them.

You are probably correct about his use of the word "confidence" and that is really the only part of that post where he & I disagree.

 

[slugboy]

Yeah, this week will be interesting for the purpose of playing together to look better against good competition.

The ECar team we just beat plays UTRGV, our Wednesday opponent, tonight and Prairie View, our Friday opponent, on Wednesday. UTRGV beat PrVw last week 70 to 57. So, we should have a pretty good preview before both of our games this week. I think we should be able to win both of this week's games handily.

However, next week, we face NU in the B1G challenge on Wednesday and St. Johns on Saturday. Those games will tell us if we really just played the legitimately #5 team close on a bad shooting night for us or not.

I think we can beat them handily with a 4-guard set, but I'd like to see more progress out of our forwards to get us ready for ACC play. Based on someone's comment, I'm not sure if Cole's injury preceded the UT game, and that might be part of the situation. It would be nice to see the forwards start scoring more.

If they're easy wins, I'm not sure whether I'd like to see us get smoother on what already runs well, or work out the weak parts of our play.

 

[AE 87]

I think we can beat them handily with a 4-guard set, but I'd like to see more progress out of our forwards to get us ready for ACC play. Based on someone's comment, I'm not sure if Cole's injury preceded the UT game, and that might be part of the situation. It would be nice to see the forwards start scoring more.

If they're easy wins, I'm not sure whether I'd like to see us get smoother on what already runs well, or work out the weak parts of our play.

I suspect we'll see a lot of different player combinations this week. We'll know how CJP is actually thinking starting next week.

 

[orientalnc]

ECU beat UTRGV by 5 points today.

 

[tsrich]

ECU beat UTRGV by 5 points today.

Are these Texas schools on an eastern tour or something?

 

[whitegoldsphinx]

We play round robin against a group of teams each year CJP has been here. I think you can claim it's a tournament and it allows you to play extra games each year. (or something like that)

 

[AE 87]

We play round robin against a group of teams each year CJP has been here. I think you can claim it's a tournament and it allows you to play extra games each year. (or something like that)

They're calling it the Deep South Showcase.

I think ECar, Lamar, Prairie View, and UTRGV are all Adidas schools.

 

[AE 87]

ECU beat UTRGV by 5 points today.

Interesting game from scoreboard.

ECar won 1st half 41-28.
UTRGV won 2nd half 36-28.

The next two games should simply be a test for us to not play down to our opponents.

 

[Kmag]

Jackets Host ECU on Friday

[figure="align: left"]

[figcap]Josh Pastner's Jackets to host ECU on 11/16[/figcap][/figure]Fresh off a hard fought game against Tennessee, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets will host the Eastern Carolina Pirates on Friday night. The game will be broadcast on ACCNE at 7:30pm.

So who is Eastern Carolina? Well aside from being the largest school in North Carolina and being known as the NC "party school", they are currently making their way into the conversation as the up and coming program in the American Athletic Conference. The ECU program made a fantastic hire during the offseason, luring Florida Gulf Coast coach Joe Dooley away from Fort Myers.

Dooley spent time in the Bill Self coaching tree prior to his hiring at FGCU. He was widely known to be one of the Jayhawk's most effective recruiters early in the Self era, credited with landing players such as Cole Aldrich, Tyshawn Taylor and Mario Chalmers. In 2013 he left Lawrence for Fort Myers for his second head coaching position, replacing Andy Enfield after he departed for USC. In five seasons at FGCU he made the NCAA tournament twice and the NIT twice. He won 21 games or more in all five seasons and never finished worse than second in the Atlantic Sun Conference. He departed the Eagles with a 114-58 record.

The interesting thing about Dooley is that he was actually the Head Coach of the Pirates before this season. He led the purple and black from 1995-1999 after Eddie Payne departed for Oregon State. During his first stint at ECU, Dooley went 57-52.

The Pirates come into the GT game with a 2-1 record, averaging 79 points per game. ECU also played Lamar early in the 2018-19 season, a game in which they needed overtime to win. ECU has an ACC flavor as Dooley brought on former Virginia Tech Assistant Coach Steve Roccaforte, who in turn brought former Hokie Seth LeDay with him. He's also bringing former Hokies Tyrie Jackson and Khadim Sy in for the 2019 class.

LeDay has led the Pirates through the first three games, averaging 16.3 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. Freshman Jayden Gardner and sophomore K.J. Davis give Dooley a nice duo to back up LeDay, combining to score 25 points and snag better than 12 rebounds per contest early in the 2018-19 season.

The straw that stirs the drink is senior point guard Isaac Fleming. The former Hawaii Rainbow Warrior has been a fantastic addition to the Pirate program, averaging 12.2 points, 4.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game through 33 games. Fleming is solid but does not provide an outside threat, shooting less than 28% from deep over the course of his career.

Strangely enough, one of Georgia's own is the player that concerns me. Freshman Tae Hardy, a Miller Grove product, has played well early for the Pirates. The 6'3" guard averages 9 points, 2.7 rebounds, an assist and a steal per game early in his career. He likes to jump passing lanes and get out in the open court. He could be a huge X-factor in this game.

At the end of the day it's hard to predict what we will see here. This is a new coach with a new program who has yet to stock the pond with his players. Dooley keeps the tempo pretty low and doesn't historically play a ton of defense (according to KenPom).

Given the most recent performance by the Jackets against Tennessee, I can't imagine the spread is going to be crazy. I do like the Jackets to cover in this contest if the spread is set at single digits. East Carolina is not Tennessee. I think this is the game where Jose Alvarado and Shembarri Phillips both get right.

Do we have an article for tomorrow’s game? Love coming here for my b-ball fix. Thanks for doing them.

 

[AUFC]

They're calling it the Deep South Showcase.

I think ECar, Lamar, Prairie View, and UTRGV are all Adidas schools.

Sounds like we can lift some hardware if we take care of business tomorrow and Friday

 

[AE 87]

Sounds like we can lift some hardware if we take care of business tomorrow and Friday

woohoo