By By BRIAN HAINES, Sports Writer
GREENVILLE — After losing a schizophrenic game to Rice 69-58 on Saturday, the big question tonight is which East Carolina team will show up when the Pirates host UCF at 7 p.m.
On Saturday, East Carolina played unmotivated basketball the first 20 minutes as it shot 2-12 from three-point land and 6-25 from the floor to head into halftime down 41-23 to an Owls team that came inb2
to Greenville on a seven-game losing streak and toting an 0-6 Conference USA record.
The good news, which has been very hard to find this season, is that ECU coach Mack McCarthy challenged his team at halftime and the players responded.
The Pirates (7-14, 1-6) played passionate basketball for just about the entire second half and out-scored Rice (7-13, 1-6) 35-28 in the final 20 minutes.
Darrius Morrow continued to make his case to return to the starting lineup after serving a three-game suspension following his Dec. 21 arrest for misdemeanor possession of marijuana, as he tallied a game-high 20 points and a team-high 13 rebounds in the loss.
Morrow was a beast on the offensive glass in the second half scoring on three put-backs which sparked a 16-4 run. Morrow finished with a game-high seven offensive rebounds.
The Pirates also got a nice contribution from freshman guard Corvonn Gaines, who in his third start of his career had seven points and four boards.
Junior center Chad Wynn continues to struggle on both ends of the floor and was benched after seven minutes of play against Rice. Wynn had trouble keeping up with the Owl’s bigs, and recorded no statistics in his seven minutes of play.
Another player who is struggling is point guard Brock Young. The junior leads Conference USA in assists with 124, but also has 95 turnovers.
Young’s biggest challenge this year has been shot selection. Against Rice Young, the team’s leading scorer with 14.9 points per game, shot a woeful 3-17 from the field for 14 points.
Young has a nice outside shot, but too many times he takes attempts with a high degree of difficulty that drain his field goal percentage. Young’s .356 shoot percentage is third-worst on the team, ahead of freshman Erin Straughn (.323) and Chris Turner (.313).
East Carolina will face a tough Central Florida (10-11, 2-5) that is led by highly touted freshman Keith Clanton.
The 6-8 Clanton has named the class 1-A player of the year in Florida last season, and is second on the team with 9.7 points per game, while leading the Golden Knights with 6.6 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per contest.
A.J. Taylor, a 6-9 junior, leads UCF with 10.1 points per game, while sophomore point guard A.J. Rompza is handing out 3.9 assists a night, while tallying a C-USA second-best 2.9 steals a game.
UCF, whose two Conference USA wins have come against Rice and Houston, has been getting strong play of late from freshman guard Marcus Jordan, the son of NBA legend Michael Jordan.
Marcus tallied a team-high 23 points in the Knights 78-71 upset over Houston, and is averaging seven points and 2.9 rebounds a game this season.
Central Florida heads into Greenville on a three-game losing streak, with its being that win over the Cougars on Jan. 20.