I sat before my television Tuesday evening to watch North Carolina’s sole remaining postseason team compete for a championship.
Most of us in North Carolina are accustomed to having a team from our state playing deep into basketball’s post-season. We expect basketball powerhouses Duke and Carolina to make the Elite 8 or Final 4 at the NCAA’s big dance.
I doubt anyone would have expected that the only North Carolina program still playing in April would have been East Carolina. When Akeem Richmond hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to down Weber State for the CollegeInsider.com tournament championship, the basketball Pirates put the finishing touches on their best season as a Division 1 school.
Admittedly, ECU did not get an invitation to “The Big Dance.” ECU did not even get a nod to compete in the National Invitational Tournament. But for only the fourth time in the school’s Division 1 history, the Pirates made the postseason.
The Pirates wrapped up a chance to play for the CIT title by edging Savannah St. (66-65), riding roughshod over Rider (75-54), downing Loyola-Maryland (70-59) and destroying Evansville (81-58).
To put a little perspective on that semifinal win, Evansville defeated this year’s Big Dance Cinderella, Wichita State, twice during the regular season.
When the Pirates earned a berth to play Weber State on the Wildcats’ home court in Ogden, Utah, they were poised to confront a team that was 30-6 on the season and had lost only once this year on its home court. By the time ECU arrived in Ogden, the Pirates had amassed a 22-12 record.
Outside the Pirate Nation, the smart money was on the Wildcats.
This year, the smart money was not so smart.
The Pirates reached some impressive milestones this year. For the first time in school history, ECU played in a Division 1 postseason championship game. For the first time, the Pirates won a Division 1 post-season championship. The CIT title match marked the 35th game ECU played this season. For the first time, East Carolina had a winning record during the regular season of Conference USA competition.
Senior point guard Miguel Paul took sole possession of second for career assists at ECU with 419. He also led all scorers with 23 points and dished six assists in the championship game.
ECU Coach Jeff Lebo coached his 100th game at the Pirate helm on Tuesday, April 2, against Weber State. He is the only ECU coach to log 100 games in just three years. His record at ECU is 56-44. Lebo is 10-3 in postseason action during his coaching career. Right now, he can say he is undefeated in the postseason as the Pirate skipper.
Lebo, who played under coaching legend Dean Smith, has led the Pirates to the best record ever in a three-year period with 56 wins. In fact, Lebo has coached the Pirates to more victories in three years than any coach in ECU history, joining only two other coaches who were able to post 40 wins in three years.
In 13 years before Lebo’s arrival, the best the Pirates had done was 14 wins. They played .500 ball just once in those years.
The key for Coach Lebo and his staff is to keep up the recruiting efforts and the on-court teaching that has turned ECU’s basketball program around in such a short time.
If his track record at Tennessee Tech, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Auburn gives us any indication, Lebo and his staff will meet the challenge head-on of making Pirate basketball perpetually competitive.
Mike Parker is a columnist for The Free Press. You can reach him at mparker16@suddenlink.net or in care of this newspaper.