Pirates look to tame Mustangs|ECU to host SMU tonight
Published 1:09 am Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By By BRIAN HAINES
Sports Writer
GREENVILLE Heading down to Rice and returning to Greenville with a victory should make the footing underneath Pirates coach Mack McCarthys feet feel a little firmer for now.
The victory avenged a Jan. 30th loss to the Owls in which East Carolina handed Rice its first Conference USA win of the year.
That loss, which was followed up by another poor performance at home against UCF, greatly intensified the heat on McCarthy surrounding his job security.
Another loss to cellar-dwelling Rice would have looked real bad when evaluating this season. However, McCarthys troops soldiered out a win in Texas behind a career night by junior point guard Brock Young.
McCarthy has recently tweaked the offense to take some of the stress off of Young and free him up more in the halfcourt. It appears the move has had some positive results as Young tallied a career-high 27 points in ECUs 76-65 win over the Owls.
Jontae Sherrod notched 15 points for the Pirates, while Darrius Morrow and Erin Straughn added nine boards each. The win was even more encouraging when you take into account that ECU held the lead for the entire second half.
With the win, East Carolina (9-17, 3-9) is in 10th place out of the 12 Conference USA teams, right above Rice and the only other league team ECU beat, Tulane.
East Carolina will look to top its third Conference USA team tonight when it hosts SMU at 7 p.m. The Mustangs are currently in a three-way tie for seventh place with their12-14 (5-7) record.
If the Pirates can pull out a win, it would be the first time they have won back-to-back games since beating South Dakota State and UNC-Greensboro on Nov. 23 and Nov. 28, respectively.
SMU is led by 6-1 junior guard Derek Williams, whose 17.1 points per game average is the fourth highest in the conference.
The Mustangs have struggled a bit on offense, but boast a defense that allows only 65.9 points per contest, which is third in the league.
Aside from Williams, SMU gets a lot of production from 6-9 junior forward Papa Dia. Dia is scoring 11.9 points per game, while pulling down 8.6 boards a night.
Joining Dia in the front court is another big body in Mouhammad Faye, the 6-9 forward is grabbing 5.5 rebounds a night, while scoring 10.8 points per game.
SMU has lost three out of its last four games, with its most recent being a 76-63 loss to Memphis.