Jan. 6, 2008
Final Stats
THE HERALD-SUN (www.HeraldSun.com)
Pirates get the best of Eagles in a televised showdown
By MIKE POTTER : The Herald-Sun
mpotter@heraldsun.com
Jan 6, 2008
GREENVILLE -- It's a rare college basketball result that allows both teams to celebrate.
But East Carolina's 79-62 win over N.C. Central on Saturday night at Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum may have been just that.
The Pirates got to put a mark in the left column in Coach Mack McCarthy's 499th game as a head coach, while the Eagles got a nice moral victory in a game cablecast throughout most of the state.
ECU, the only holdover from the 2006-07 NCCU schedule, had won 68-47 last season in the schools' historic first meeting.
The win was ECU's second straight over a Division I team, the first time that had happened since back-to-back victories over Wofford on Nov. 26 and 30, 2005.
ECU (6-7) already has equaled the win total of last season's 6-24 campaign, and the fourth win over a Division I team surpassed the total of three the Pirates had last season under Ricky Stokes.
Cory Farmer had 16 points and John Fields came off the bench for 16 to lead four Pirates in double figures. Sam Hinnant added 11 points and Darrell Jenkins 10, with Jenkins tying the school single-game record with 13 assists.
"I thought we executed pretty well in the second half," said McCarthy, who is 315-184 as a head coach. "We shot over 50 percent (51.0), we made more free throws than they shot (19 to 17) and 22 assists on 25 field goals is really, really good."
But the performance in defeat may have been even better for NCCU (1-19). The Eagles, who have lost 14 straight in their first season in Division I, equaled their closest road loss of the season, tying a 75-58 loss at Wake Forest.
Henry Dickerson's club shot 55.6 percent after the break to finish with 43.6 percent for the game. The Eagles outscored ECU 40-38 in the second half and outrebounded the Pirates 32-29. And they may have found a third scorer to help consistent leaders Charles Futrell and Bryan Ayala.
Futrell led the way for the Eagles with a career-high 23 points and 10 rebounds, for his seventh career double-double and third of the season. Junior guard J'Mell Walters, a native of nearby Kinston who was averaging only 3.1 points per game, added a career-high 20 points with five assists. Bryan Ayala, who played only 24 minutes after getting three fouls in the first 6:02 of the second half, added 10 points.
Dickerson was the associate head coach under McCarthy at Chattanooga from 1989-1997, then was the head coach there for five seasons after McCarthy moved to Virginia Commonwealth.
"We may be the only coaches who talk at halftime," Dickerson said. "He's probably one of the best X-and-O coaches in the game, and we go back a long way.
"Our guys have played hard in every game we have played, and this was probably our best 40 minutes. J'Mell was tremendous, but we let him do that because he's from Kinston and it was his 21st birthday two days ago. So you'll never see anything like that again [smiles]."
ECU led 41-22 at halftime behind 10 points from Farmer. Walters had 10 at the half for NCCU.
"I knew I had to pick my game up when B.A. went out," Walters said. "All my family was here and some of my high school coaches. I didn't get to play here before because I was hurt, so this was a dream come true."
The Pirates led 14-4 when Farmer hit the back end of a two-shot opportunity at the 15:00 mark.
NCCU cut the difference to 23-15 on Michael Glasker's drive with 8:42 left in the half, but the Pirates responded with a 15-3 run to get a strong working margin.
ECU's biggest lead was 25 on two occasions, the last on a three-point play from Jenkins with 17:38 to play that made it 50-25. But the Eagles, spurred on by about 100 fans behind their bench, refused to roll over.
NCCU sliced the lead to 10, at 61-51, on a Futrell 3-pointer with 8:59 to play, and trailed by only 71-60 following a pair of Futrell free throws at 2:30 before the Pirates pulled away.
"I don't want to say this was a moral victory, but this was the best game we've played as a team all year," Futrell said. "If we can play like this the rest of the way, we're definitely going to win some more games."
NOTES -- The Eagles' next game is Monday night at 7 at former CIAA rival Norfolk State, a game that will be a homecoming for Granby High alum Ayala. NCCU plays at N.C. State on Wednesday night at 7, then plays its next home game on Jan. 16 against Coppin State. ... ECU visits Conference USA foe Memphis on Wednesday night.
