Gameday Preview: ECU at UCF

Game 16: East Carolina at UCF
Date	Tuesday, Jan. 3
Time	7:15 p.m. (ET)
Location	Orlando, Fla. (CFE Arena)
Television	ESPNEWS
Web Coverage	Live Stats \\\ Listen Live \\\ Watch Live
Game Notes	East Carolina \\\ UCF \\\ The American
Social Media	Twitter: @ECUScoreboard \\\ @ECUPirateHoops

After opening its American Athletic Conference slate with a pair of home games, East Carolina plays his its first league road game of the season Tuesday at UCF. The Pirates lost both games to the Knights a year ago after sweeping the three-game series the prior season.

East Carolina split its first two American games, defeating USF and losing to SMU, while the Knights took down Tulane and Temple to open league play 2-0.

Both squads used their defense to record wins last week as the Pirates held USF to 49 points and UCF limited Temple to 54, including 11 first half points.

The Knights have the nation's top field goal percent defense at 32.5 percent and rank fourth in scoring defense and rebounding margin. The Pirates are allowing their opponents to shoot just 37.0 percent from the field, which ranks them seventh nationally.

It's their size that helps make each team so good defensively. UCF is one of the four tallest teams in the country at 79.2" along with Florida State, Syracuse and Pittsburgh. ECU is sixth tallest team with an average height of 78.9".

Much of each team's height is derived from the center positions where ECU graduate Andre Washington stands at 7-foot-1 and UCF sophomore Tacko Fall towers at 7-foot-6.
Fall is on pace to set an NCAA record for field goal percentage. Through 14 games this season, he owns a field goal percent of 84.4, connecting on 92-of-109 attempts, with a double-double average of 15.4 points and 11.5 rebounds per game.

Washington ranks second in the conference with 2.7 blocks per game, averaging more than seven points and seven rebounds per game. He has blocked 11 total shots in the first two conference games and has rejected five or more shots in a game five times this season.

East Carolina ranks second in The American with 81 total blocks.

With Washington providing interior defense, the scoring load falls up the trio of Caleb White, B.J. Tyson and Kentrell Barkley. White and Tyson each average 12.3 points per game and Barkley nets 10.6 points per contest and is one only five league players to average more than 10 points, six rebounds and three assists per contest.

The Pirate freshmen duo of Elijah Hughes and Jeremy Sheppard continues to evolve. In the five games they've played together, the combo is averaging a combined 19.0 points, 5.2 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game.

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Players Mentioned

Kentrell Barkley

Elijah Hughes

Jeremy Sheppard

B.J. Tyson

Andre Washington

Caleb White

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