East Carolina Hosts Winthrop Out Of Exam Break

East Carolina Hosts Winthrop Out Of Exam Break

12/17/2004

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East Carolina Host Winthrop Out Of Exam Break
One day after the last final exams of the 2004 fall semester are given at East Carolina University, its men's basketball team will return to the court for a non-conference game against Winthrop University on Friday, December 17, at 7 o'clock inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum. The Pirates will look to snap an overall two-game slide after suffering heartbreaking losses to Western Carolina and Old Dominion this past week.

Defensively, the Pirates played well enough to win Sunday against Old Dominion, holding the Monarchs to 35 percent shooting from the field and forced 15 turnovers. ECU also did a good job of limiting ODU's second chance opportunities. The Monarchs scored just six points courtesy of offensive rebounds.

East Carolina will look to improve upon its poor shooting performance against the Monarchs, just 32.1 percent. As a team this season, ECU is shooting 43 percent from the field and has two players ranked among the Conference USA top 11 in field goal percentage (Moussa Badiane and Corey Rouse).

Rouse will look to add to his Dennis Rodman-like stat line from last game, in which he grabbed 14 rebounds, but scored just two points. His 8.6 rebounds per game rank him among the league's top glass swipers entering Friday night's contest.

Badiane will also need to be more of a factor on the offensive end of the floor after scoring just four points against Old Dominion. Freshman Jonathan Hart could see more playing time against Winthrop. Hart scored six points and pulled down four rebounds in 12 minutes of action Sunday. Thus far in the season, Hart is shooting better than 70 percent from the field (12-of-17) and has tallied more offensive rebounds than defensive boards (14:11). His tremendous leaping ability, quickness to the ball and high energy level may allow him to see his most significant playing time of the season since the season opener against Pepperdine.

The backcourt duo of sophomores Mike Cook and Japhet McNeil are likely to start their seventh game of the season together. The two have combined for 57 assists this season and are averaging 21.0 points per game. Freshmen Tom Hammonds, Marvin Kilgore and Josh King are continuing to grow as players and will be counted on to provide more perimeter threats.

The Book On Winthrop

Winthrop enters Friday's game with an overall record of 6-2 and winners of four consecutive games. Both of the Eagles' losses this season have come to Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools (Arkansas and South Carolina).

Winthrop is averaging 64.4 points per game, while shooting 40.5 percent from the field. The Eagles are oustscoring their opponents by 5.9 points per game, while holding them to 59.5 points.

Winthrop is an excellent three-point shooting team, connecting on 36.6 percent of its attempts (53-145). Five players on the team are shooting better than 38 percent from behind the arc, led by Phillip Williams, who has made 5-of-9 three-pointers this season.

The Eagles return eight lettermen and three starters from last year's 16-12 squad.

Gregg Marshall is 121-66 in his seventh year at Winthrop. He led the Eagles to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments from 1999-2003.

Sophomore guard Torrell Martin is the Eagles' leading score with a 12.9 points per game average. Sophomore Criag Bradshaw is the only other player on the team to average double figures with 10.6 points per game. 4Winthrop has five players averaging over 21 minutes per game and seven averaging more than 14 minutes per game. Chris Gaynor sees the most action of any player, playing 27.4 minutes per game.

Series History

East Carolina leads the all-time series, 4-1.

All five of the previous meetings took place during the mid-1980s.

The Pirates are 3-0 against Winthrop at Minges Coliseum at 1-1 versus the Eagles in Rock Hill, S.C.

Four of the five previous meetings in the series have been decided by eight points or less with ECU winning all four of those games.

The largest margin of victory in the series was a 12-point win by Winthrop on Feb. 16, 1987 (66-52) in Rock Hill.

Friday's game will be the first coaching matchup between Bill Herrion and Gregg Marshall. Herrion has never faced Winthrop during his career, nor has Marshall faced East Carolina.

ECU-Winthrop Connections

East Carolina and Winthrop have two common opponents this season: Barton and South Carolina. The Pirates defeated Barton during the exhibition season and will play South Carolina on Monday. Winthrop defeated Barton at home and lost by 10 to South Carolina in Columbia.

Winthrop freshman Mike Jenkins is native of eastern North Carolina. He hails from Kinston, N.C. and attended Kinston High School.

Eagles' junior Billy Houston attended 71st High School in Fayetteville, where ECU assistant coach George Stackhouse served as an assistant coach from 1995-98.

Monday Night Hoops
East Carolina will play its first of two Monday night games on December 20 in Mobile, Ala. against the South Carolina Gamecocks as part of the Coors Classic Basketball Doubleheader. The game is scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. EST start, a change back to the original starting time from the most recent listed time. The game will be the first meeting between the two "Carolina" schools since 1998. The all-time series is tied at 5-5.

TV Game Added To Slate
Carolina Sports Entertainment Television (C-SET) have been given the rights to televise the ECU-Charlotte game from Charlotte on January 8. WITN will no longer televise the game instead, "The Official Station of the ECU Pirates" will broadcast the Pirates' Conference USA opener against USF on January 5 bringing the total number of ECU games to be televised regionally to nine.

Final Notes From ODU Game

Junior Corey Rouse grabbed a career-high 14 total rebounds and 11 defensive rebounds. Rouse led the team in rebounding for the fourth time in the last five games.

Sophomore Japhet McNeil scored a season-high 10 points and jerked a career-high 14 rebounds.

Senior Moussa Badiane blocked his 263rd career shot, tying him for second-place on the Conference USA career blocked shots list.

Freshman Marvin Kilgore added a season-best nine points, including seven in the first half.

Sophomore Mike Cook scored a game-high 16 points and led ECU in scoring for the fourth time this season.

The road team won for the third consecutive time in the series.

Homecourt Advantage
Since Bill Herrion took over the reigns of the East Carolina basketball program in 1999-2000, the Pirates have created a unique homecourt advantage. ECU is 47-26 (.647) inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum since the dawning of the new millennium and have posted 10 victories on its homecourt in three of the past four seasons. More impressive than that is the Pirates' non-conference record inside the coliseum. ECU is 25-6 against non-conference opponents, a winning percentage of 80.6 percent.

Moose Is Loose
Senior Moussa Badiane has gotten his final season off to a good start. He leads Conference USA in blocked shots per game (3.43) and ranks ninth nationally. Moussa has also taken his scoring up a notch, averaging 14.6 ppg, 20th highest scoring average among C-USA players. He also ranks among the league leaders in numerous other categories: Rebounding (7.0-14th), Field Goal Percentage (.580-8th), and Offensive Rebounds (3.57-2nd). His six blocked shots against Belmont Abbey are the most by any Conference USA player this season.

Badiane Closing In On Blocked Shots Record
ECU senior center Moussa Badiane is closing in on the Conference USA career record blocked shots. During the first six games of the year Badiane has rejected 263 shots, an average of 3.8 per game. Badiane currently sits 29 blocked shots behind former Cincinnati All-American Kenyon Martin on the league's all-time list. Martin swatted 292 shots during his career.

However, before he can pass Martin, he must first overtake former USF star Gerrick Morris. Badiane needs one to pass him and move into sole possession of second place.

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