We’re All We Need: The Story of 2022-23 ECU Women’s Basketball
May 10, 2023 | Women's Basketball
Part One: New Beginnings and Non-Conference
"We're all we got," says Kim McNeill, confident as she punctuates her pregame talk.
"We're all we need," shouts back a chorus of 14 believers. Fourteen young women who have sweat and bled; laughed and cried; won and lost with one another. They've won 22 times, the second most in program history.
Fourteen voices who weren't sure, then bought in – who sat, in that moment, 40 minutes from glory; 40 minutes from seeing the confetti fall for them; and 40 minutes from painting Fort Worth, Texas purple.
The call and response rises to an enthusiastic din. We're all we got – we're all we need. A locker room that believed in itself when no one else did was ready to blow the doors off the building.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This story starts earlier. In a practice gym in the sweltering heat of the Greenville, North Carolina summer.
The Pieces, When They Fit
The story of the 2022-23 season starts with the kind of mystical summer pickup games that feature heavily in the origin story of many great teams. It's there that a chemistry on the court which had eluded ECU Women's Basketball for far too long started to take hold.
Coach Kim describes it as an 'unknown summer'. The Pirates had lost their top scorer to the ever-looming transfer portal; returned a five-star talent who had yet to find her breakthrough in Danae McNeal (more on her later); brought in a talented cast of freshmen which included Farmville's Very Own; and had gone portal hunting themselves for a veteran point guard in the form of a Canadian by way of Oklahoma.
There was, on paper, plenty of talent. But there had been talent before. Coach Kim's teams bolstered All-Conference Honorees, Defensive Player of the Years and a Most Improved Player, but there was no apt translation to team success on the court. Summer of 2022 promised something different.
In those down years, the team may have bonded off the court but the product on the court was more disjointed. It was an incongruent mix of play that could have been – flashes of brilliance over top of an underwhelming product. The focus was on individuals – individual accolades, individual stats – and less on the team.
That changed last summer – and new blood helped when, really, it didn't have to – and a whole it came from the attitude of a 6-2 superstar who goes by many names but is known to most simply as: "MyMy".
Rated No. 70 in her class by ESPN, Amiya Joyner was the highest rated recruit in ECU history. Her exploits on the court at Farmville Central made her Legend – a legend which only grew when the hometown kid shirked expectations and picked her hometown school.
All of that attention – all of that notoriety can do something to an 18-year-old's ego. Not MyMy.
The prize jewel of a recruiting class the staff hoped would bring ECU Women's Basketball back to the promised land shocked her teammates with her play on the court, but also with her humility. See, Amiya is at times unselfish to a fault. She's a pass-first point guard of a center with guard skills and distributing instincts who had to be compelled to shoot the ball herself in the early part of the season.
The nerves about chemistry were, as it were, settled. The young talent fit in, and the team had snagged a stud of a true point guard out of the portal in Micah Dennis. Micah had a great summer as Coach Kim will tell anyone, thriving with her new teammates and relishing the opportunity to take the reins of an offense that desperately needed a spark.
But it wasn't simply handed to her. Micah would have to go and take it. Alexsia Rose was the Sheriff in town, and she was the team's rock early in the season.
"We're all we need," shouts back a chorus of 14 believers. Fourteen young women who have sweat and bled; laughed and cried; won and lost with one another. They've won 22 times, the second most in program history.
Fourteen voices who weren't sure, then bought in – who sat, in that moment, 40 minutes from glory; 40 minutes from seeing the confetti fall for them; and 40 minutes from painting Fort Worth, Texas purple.
The call and response rises to an enthusiastic din. We're all we got – we're all we need. A locker room that believed in itself when no one else did was ready to blow the doors off the building.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. This story starts earlier. In a practice gym in the sweltering heat of the Greenville, North Carolina summer.
The Pieces, When They Fit
The story of the 2022-23 season starts with the kind of mystical summer pickup games that feature heavily in the origin story of many great teams. It's there that a chemistry on the court which had eluded ECU Women's Basketball for far too long started to take hold.
Coach Kim describes it as an 'unknown summer'. The Pirates had lost their top scorer to the ever-looming transfer portal; returned a five-star talent who had yet to find her breakthrough in Danae McNeal (more on her later); brought in a talented cast of freshmen which included Farmville's Very Own; and had gone portal hunting themselves for a veteran point guard in the form of a Canadian by way of Oklahoma.
There was, on paper, plenty of talent. But there had been talent before. Coach Kim's teams bolstered All-Conference Honorees, Defensive Player of the Years and a Most Improved Player, but there was no apt translation to team success on the court. Summer of 2022 promised something different.
In those down years, the team may have bonded off the court but the product on the court was more disjointed. It was an incongruent mix of play that could have been – flashes of brilliance over top of an underwhelming product. The focus was on individuals – individual accolades, individual stats – and less on the team.
That changed last summer – and new blood helped when, really, it didn't have to – and a whole it came from the attitude of a 6-2 superstar who goes by many names but is known to most simply as: "MyMy".
Rated No. 70 in her class by ESPN, Amiya Joyner was the highest rated recruit in ECU history. Her exploits on the court at Farmville Central made her Legend – a legend which only grew when the hometown kid shirked expectations and picked her hometown school.
All of that attention – all of that notoriety can do something to an 18-year-old's ego. Not MyMy.
The prize jewel of a recruiting class the staff hoped would bring ECU Women's Basketball back to the promised land shocked her teammates with her play on the court, but also with her humility. See, Amiya is at times unselfish to a fault. She's a pass-first point guard of a center with guard skills and distributing instincts who had to be compelled to shoot the ball herself in the early part of the season.
The nerves about chemistry were, as it were, settled. The young talent fit in, and the team had snagged a stud of a true point guard out of the portal in Micah Dennis. Micah had a great summer as Coach Kim will tell anyone, thriving with her new teammates and relishing the opportunity to take the reins of an offense that desperately needed a spark.
But it wasn't simply handed to her. Micah would have to go and take it. Alexsia Rose was the Sheriff in town, and she was the team's rock early in the season.
•••
There was another missing piece, though. One the Pirates thought they had, but weren't quite sure.
The No. 48 recruit in the 2019 high school class. A five-star, South Carolina Gatorade Player of the Year talent out of Swansea, S.C. A gifted athlete who never found a groove at Clemson.
Danae McNeal had some moments in her first year at ECU, but the loss of her grandmother – who Danae has described as her best friend – and an untimely broken hand, cost Danae most of her inaugural season in Greenville.
Danae put in work in the offseason though, grinding in the gym when no one was looking. She stayed on campus and put in the kind of work that makes legends but there was still the little task of putting the pieces together in a game.
•••
The pieces were there, and at long last they were coming together. The pieces of a great team, when they fit, form a beautiful thing.
Just Win, Baby
The opening stretch of the 2022-23 schedule was designed with a particular goal in mind: build confidence. Five home games to open the season, winnable games abound. The object was to get the team rolling – get the team winning, and go from there (a strategy, mind you, notably taken to much ado by the 2022-23 NCAA Champion LSU Tigers).
The Pirates opened the season on Nov. 7 in Minges Coliseum against South Carolina State. It was a game designed to be a shellacking, and it was. The Pirates led 24-9 after 10 minutes and never looked back. Danae led all scorers with 14 and Amiya had a strong 12 and eight boards in only 18 minutes of action. Jayla Hearp put up 12 in her debut and Synia Johnson, a team captain, added 10 of her own. It was well rounded, and it was a route. Get in, get out; get the W, move on: 71-35.
Then came a date with an ACC opponent. An opportunity to shock some people. To send a message that we're here and you better take notice. It was a two-point game at halftime, then Wake Forest took over. A 28-11 third quarter spelled doom for the fledgling Pirates and the team's demons on the offensive end once more reared their ugly heads.
First loss of the season, but a close one. One you can live with when you're still figuring it out. One which is made a little more okay when you follow it up by demolishing UNCW by a healthy margin. Alexsia starred in that game, her career high of 18 points – which went with a whopping total of six steals – gave the Seahawks little chance.
Alexsia actually went over 100 career steals this past season. The point guard played sound defense when she was in the lineup and held the team steady for a long time, lest we forget.
•••
There's a saying about when a tide turns. Simply put: you see it.
On Nov. 16, 2022, a Pirate tide began to turn. See, High Point had pretty well handled the Pirates just a year prior. It was only a 10-point margin, thanks to a big fourth quarter for the Panthers, but it was never going to be ECU's day. Well, this season it was never going to be High Point's day.
The game was fabulous. Everything you could want in a college basketball game. Oh, and there were over six-thousand people in attendance. 6,657 to be exact. An ECU record. It was Education Day and the Pitt County students in attendance made their presence felt. Down on press row, I attest, it was deafening.
The Pirates jumped out to a huge lead – then the Panthers pounced back. The bad guys led by three going into the fourth, then ECU answered. Back and forth. Back and forth.
ECU had two looks at the win in regulation, but they wouldn't fall. Then in OT, the crowd wouldn't let ECU fail. It was a 12-1 run in those five minutes. A blowout. The game was over and against all odds it was the Pirates on top.
Friends, this was not the East Carolina Women's Basketball of old.
The High Point game was the first time on the season – the first of many in which the Pirates simply refused to lose. They willed themselves to the win. Like all of their games to that point, it really wasn't pretty. But ECU doesn't play a pretty brand of basketball – they play a gritty brand of basketball and that's why they won. They outworked, outhustled, outgritted High Point.
It was the start of something special.
•••
After another dominating win over Charleston Southern – in which Danae score 17 points, there was a time when that was a great outing for her, boy did that change – the Pirates trekked to Charlottesville, Va.
Sure, they would get whacked by UVA that weekend, but that's not the game that mattered most. The game that mattered most was another gut-it-out win over Liberty. Why is this game so worth mentioning in depth? Because it was the Brittany Franklin game. That's why.
The Pirates' backup center entered a languishing lineup in that game and caught fire. Brittany registered a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds and she did so in only 11 minutes and 40 seconds played.
I was there. I watched it in real-time and I still can't believe she did it. It was a stunning display in which the senior showed the raw talent which had made her a sought-after talent out of high school. It was a sight to see. The Pirates won, 72-64.
An Out of Body Experience
The Pirates won three of the next five games after the Virginia trip, but those two losses still sting. The one against Gardner-Webb, sure, they were a remarkable team which went on to great success in dominating the Big South and making the NCAA Tournament. But the ill-fated trip to George Mason on December first is still confounding.
ECU trailed by double-digits seemingly from the jump and mustered only a measly 41 points. It was a throwback to the painful days of old. What had worked so far in the season flew out the went and a reversion to the old mean was hard to watch. It was an ugly, ugly loss.
At no point did it seem like the Pirates had a chance in the game. It is still the only game of the season that still remains a mystery. It was an out of body experience of the worst kind – but it happened, and it's important. Context is everything. We aren't here without that pain.
•••
Humor me, if you will, as we skip ahead for a moment, because there's a reason the George Mason game was so important. It's a case study. A momentary illustration of one way things can go when the odds seem insurmountably stacked against you from the very beginning.
The other way things can go is objectively more enjoyable. That way is what happened in Hampton, Va. on December 21st.
The game before the holiday break is always a trap and that one against Hampton was no different. The Pirates had earned a blowout win last time out, Hampton was not having a great season, and conference play loomed – a perfect recipe for a letdown.
For a while, it seemed like the worst fear was coming true. The Pirates trailed from the beginning. Nothing worked. Nothing went right. The team couldn't buy a foul or a basket. It was awful.
Coach Kim got rung up for arguing a call in the second half. It was a well-earned tech. It seemed, at the time, like another out of body experience in the making.
The Pirates trailed by seven points with just over seven minutes to play. The game seemed to be over – ECU seemed lifeless.
Then Micah hit a three. Then Morgan Moseley sank a free throw. Then MyMy scored, then made a free throw shortly after. It was a tie ballgame with under four to play. Just like that. Forcing turnovers, staying alive, creating opportunity. That's ECU basketball.
The game went back and forth until the team's found themselves tied again. 60 all. 29 seconds left. ECU ball. The Pirates put the balls in the hands of their best player, but it wasn't her shot.
"We put the ball in our best player's hands…" Coach Kim said, adding. "Sometimes you have to use her as a decoy."
Danae McNeal as a decoy? Believe it. She took the ball to the top of the key and drew the attention she commanded. That gave MyMy the space to post up – right in the middle of the lane. She caught the ball, turned and finished a remarkable hook shot over two defenders with 2.1 left. 62-60, ECU.
Synia deflected the ensuing inbounds back into the hands of the Hampton passer. It was a remarkable play. The kind of unsung heroism that Synia made her calling card this season.
A couple of MyMy free throws later and that was all she wrote. 64-60. Trap avoided.
A Phenom Emerges
It would be easy to cite the heroics of the Hampton win as the moment Amiya Joyner became the highlight making MyMy we came to know in the latter part of the season, but it wasn't.
"[North Carolina] A&T, I think that was her true breakout game," says Coach Kim. "She had a really good game… played with a lot of emotion."
That game against A&T was notable for many reasons. It was a big win, for one. Jayla had a stunning day with 18 points – scoring with the kind of confidence you expect from a senior, not a freshman. And, MyMy had her first double-double.
It wasn't flashy. 11 points and 11 rebounds. But it broke the dam and allowed the flood of otherworldly play which followed. There is no Freshman of the Year MyMy without 11 and 11 against A&T MyMy. After battling COVID and the Flu, that game mattered to her. Staring down conference play in a couple weeks, it was time to step up, and MyMy sure did.
That game set the stage for the next – gave her, or perhaps the team, the confidence to make the play against Hampton, and propelled a team that was starting to find its groove into something it hadn't yet imagined.
•••
In order to win, teams first must learn how to win. That was the critical aspect of non-conference play. This ECU team had to learn how to win. It wasn't enough to be good, they had to be good together. And from that first game to the High Point win, to the George Mason loss, to the Hampton win and everything in between, the Pirates had started to learn how to win.
But that was just the start. The real test lurked waiting. A test disguised as an opportunity which highlighted a chip the Pirates' collective shoulders signified most simply by a number: 11.
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NOTE: This story is the first part of a three-part feature recapping the 2022-23 ECU Women's Basketball season. Parts two and three will be released on May 17 and 24.
Players Mentioned
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Center
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Forward
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Guard/Forward
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Guard
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