ECU opens play in this year’s American Athletic Conference tournament on Thursday at 7 o’clock against UCF on ESPN U. The Pirates played the Knights to a four point 64-60 game after coming off nearly a month long delay due to Covid-19.
Jayden Gardner and Tristen Newton each generated 18 points to lead all scorers while UCF placed four players in double-figures led by Isiah Adams’ 15 points. Darius Perry and Darrin Green added 14 points each for the Knights and Perry pulled down 11 rebounds.
“We just know who they are. They are a very good three-point shooting team,” said Gardner, “They have some bigs who can go get some baskets but overall it’s mainly about us having less self inflicting wounds, just being able to go through stretches when we need baskets and being more smart and locked in. We have to play a whole forty minutes tomorrow.”
Joe Dooley says there is a chance that Bitumba Baruti could make his return for the first round game with the Knights and said he is there in Fort Worth and talked about the upcoming game against UCF in the AAC Tournament.
“We’re all just happy for the opportunity. Last year we’re all out there for the shoot around and all the sudden the tournament is cancelled and you have to wait an entire year to do this,” said Dooley, “It’s a tribute to the fact that we’re making progress to get back to normality. It’s good for everybody.”
UCF is a team that Dooley and the Pirates know pretty well and he outlined what his team has to do in order to advance in the tournament.
“We have to get them off the line. We have to guard that which we did a decent job but I thought where they hurt us last time was in the post. We have to keep them from getting easy baskets and limit their paint touches.”
“I think we have to take care of the zone we saw against them. They hurt us with their zone in the second half in the last eight or ten minutes at our place,” said ECU head coach Joe Dooley, “I think the biggest thing is to get some soreness out. We’ll get in some lifting and stretching, try to get our bodies and our minds right and try to tweak a couple of things.”
“I think we can play better than we have and I think playing more games will help us,” said Dooley.
Darius Perry is leading UCF in scoring at 14.6 point a game, 3.4 assists and 1.3 steals a game. Brandon Mahan at 12.5 points and 5.5 rebounds and Darin Green, Jr. at 11.7 points a game gives the Knights a trio players to deal with at the offensive end of the court. Isaiah Adams at 9.8 points a game isn't far behind and led the charge against ECU last week.
Gardner outlined what he thinks the Pirates will have to do in order to be in a position to benefit when ECU takes on the Knights for the third time this season.
“It’s a team we just played and we know very well. With UCF it’s shooters, shooters, shooters so for us to be prepared you’ve got to play similar to how we played a few nights ago but play even smarter,” Jayden Gardner told PirateIllustrated.com, “We have to get them off the line, we have to be able to execute when they go zone and we’ve just got to be able to play smart and play hard as long as we can. That’s all we can do.
Game time is at 7 o’clock ET and has been upgraded to ESPN2.
