The men's basketball schedule is here.
The women's basketball schedule is here.
Britny and Whitny Edwards with Coach Heather Macy
Women's team strengthened
by twin transfers from UVa
With the departure of three starters from last year’s squad, women’s basketball coach Heather Macy knew she had some holes to fill during the offseason. So she was delighted when one phone call yielded two quality players from a family with a top Pirate pedigree.
Britny and Whitny Edwards, the daughters of arguably the ECU’s most famous basketball player, Theodore “Blue” Edwards, transferred over the summer to ECU after graduating from the University of Virginia, where Britny played for three seasons and Whitny for two. The NCAA requires most transfers to sit out for a year, but that requirement was waived for the Edwards twins because they had finished their undergraduate degrees in three years and Virginia did not offer the graduate degree they wanted. Both are enrolled in ECU’s masters in communication program.
“The girls are absolutely wonderful,” Macy says. “They’re just incredibly mature. They’re very good communicators. I look for them to come in and contribute right away and also contribute some leadership for us.”
Whitny, a 5-11 guard, averaged 6.6 points a game for the Cavaliers last season, and Britny, a 6-1 forward, appeared in 23 games off the bench. Britny redshirted her freshman campaign at Virginia, so she has one more year of eligibility than her sister.
Both players were standout athletes for Providence Day School in Charlotte, earning All-State and All-Conference selections. Whitny was ranked as the fourth-best shooting prospect in the state her senior year, and both received an invitation to the Nike Skills Academy.
Their father played junior college ball at Louisburg College before transferring to ECU in 1986. Inducted into the ECU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994, he still holds the school record for most points in a single season (773). He had a 10-year career in the National Basketball Association, playing for the Utah Jazz, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat. Their mother, Valerie Cooper, also played basketball for ECU, in 1987. —Bethany Bradsher
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If you win some games, you apparently lose some big-name opponents. That’s the reality facing East Carolina’s men’s basketball team after enjoying its first winning season in 14 years. Clemson, N.C. State and other big-name programs that once were happy to play ECU apparently want very little to do with the Pirates now. “My first year, I had a thousand calls to play,” second-year coach Jeff Lebo says. “This year, we’ve made a lot of calls to the ACC and the SEC to come play here, but we couldn’t get anybody to bite.”
That change of heart was frustrating as Lebo worked to upgrade ECU’s nonconference schedule, but it’s good news as well. It means the college basketball world has taken notice that the Pirates aren’t the pushovers they once were.
Lebo is fixated on winning more games than last year and making a splash in the postseason. But for that to happen a group of younger players needs to step up and fill the holes left by four graduating seniors.
With the departure of Brock Young, Jamar Abrams ’11, Jontae Sherrod and Chad Wynn ’10, the ECU squad lost three of its top five scorers and a wealth of experience from the team that won 18 games and qualified for the Collegeinsider.com Tournament, its first postseason appearance since 1993. Now, Lebo is looking forward to seeing which players will emerge as pacesetters in a season where the Conference USA title could seemingly go to anyone.
“We’ve got a lot of question marks, but the league lost a lot of players, too,” he says. “Last year Conference USA was eighth in the power rankings, which is the highest it’s ever been. This year is different; the players are a lot younger.”
In the midst of that uncertainty, Pirate fans will pin many of their hopes on one senior who has spent three years in a Pirate uniform —Darrius Morrow. Morrow, a 6-8 forward who averaged 13 points a game last season and has been ECU’s top rebounder for the past three years, knows he is the leader of this team. He hopes to make an impression on and off the court.
“It’s what I’ve always dreamed of, being the leader of a team,” he says. “I feel I’m ready to lead a team. I’ve been kind of a quiet leader since I’ve been here, but this year I feel I’m going to come out of my shell.”
Typically, the introduction of a new coach can equal a rocky adjustment for players like Morrow, who are accustomed to the old way of doing things. But when Lebo and his staff arrived, Morrow says it took just a few weeks before he felt at ease with the new system and the new leadership. And because the younger players are buying into Team Lebo with even greater ease, he feels this year’s squad will be unified from the first tipoff.
Lebo says the rapport between players and coaches has been excellent, and he personally is more comfortable on the ECU campus. “Obviously when you take over a program, there are a lot of moving pieces, a lot of different things, you’re trying to fly by the seat of your pants, because you’re trying to touch a lot of different things that you’re unfamiliar with,” he says. “So that’s all behind us.”
Still, Lebo knows it can take years for coaches to install their own culture. He believes it will take three seasons of consistent leadership—of older players passing down expectations to younger teammates—before he is able to build something enduring.
Acknowledging that it does take time to instill a winning mentality, East Carolina extended Lebo’s contract through the 2018–19 season, an addition of three years to his original contract. “I have a tremendous appreciation for this great university and the confidence that [Chancellor Steve] Ballard and [Athletics Director] Terry Holland have shown in me,” Lebo said.
“Coach Lebo’s contract extension clearly shows that both coach Lebo and East Carolina University are very happy with each other and wish to publicly express their intention to work together to build a great basketball program here at East Carolina,” Holland said.
Whether ECU enjoys a second winning season will depend on players like Erin Straughn and Corvonn Gaines, juniors who averaged more minutes than anyone last year but the departed seniors and Morrow. They were saddled with considerable responsibility as sophomores and delivered, Lebo says, so the table is set for them to be players the Pirate Nation depends on this winter.
“Those two guys started for us almost every game of the season,” Lebo says. “We have high expectations for them. As sophomores last year they got a little taste of what can be. We’ve got to get those guys better. They know what to expect.”
Gaines, a 6-4 guard who asserted himself on defense with a team-leading 55 steals last year, says he expects a group of six juniors will step in to provide backbone to a team with just two seniors. Before he had even taken the floor with some of the players who will become key contributors this fall, Gaines was confident that they could come together to topple some powerful teams.
“I feel like we can beat a team like that, as long as we click at the right place and the right moment,” he predicts.
Behind Morrow, Gaines and Straughn wait a host of players who are less known to Pirate fans but talented enough to play important roles. Senior Austin Steed and junior Miguel Paul were forced to sit out last season under NCAA transfer rules after they transferred from larger Division I programs. Steed, who came from South Carolina with one year of eligibility after earning his degree in three and a half years, and Paul, who was the top substitute at Missouri for two years before transferring to ECU, have the potential to be difference makers.
Other returning players who have proven their worth are sophomores Robert Sampson and Peter Torlak. Sampson, the son of former Virginia and NBA standout Ralph Sampson, averaged three rebounds a game off of the bench. In the case of both veterans and newcomers, Lebo said, the most significant defining factor in their individual success will be their dedication to practice and to strength and conditioning.
In addition to the new upperclassmen, freshman recruits like Paris Roberts-Campbell and Yasin Kolo are expected to pitch in for the Pirates in their quest to build on Lebo’s strong opening act. Roberts-Campbell, a star guard from Charlotte who was an All-State player for United Faith Christian Academy, and Kolo, a forward who is originally from Germany but averaged 22 points a game for Fayetteville Christian Academy, will be fully steeped in the Lebo culture as they grow into starring roles.
“I think we’ll have some depth,” Lebo says. “I think we’ve helped ourselves with our ability to shoot the ball from the perimeter. Hopefully we’ll be able to space the court out a little bit. We’ve got a lot of unknowns. We’re going to be relying on some guys that haven’t played.”
