Analysis: ECU’s WBB fall short of repeating last years’ success

The quest to repeat last year's success for the East Carolina University women’s basketball team was sunk in the final American Athletic Conference (AAC) tournament game against The University of Rice.

Going into the 2023-2024 National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball season, ECU was predicted to finish second place in the AAC preseason rankings. The actual standing was lower than that, with the Pirates finishing in sixth with a 19-14 record. The previous year ECU had a 23-10 record.

On the surface, the Pirates seemed to have kept their identity in tack: a strong defensive unit that stops the opposition from scoring. This season, the Pirates allowed 62 points per game to opposing teams. However, compared to last year’s defensive stats where the Pirates allowed only 56 points per game, you’d see that the six point differential took ECU from the 23rd best scoring defense in the nation to 139th.

On Offense, the Pirates statistically relied heavily on the presence of ECU graduate student guard Danae McNeal. McNeal was the leading scorer for the Pirates in 24 of the Pirates 33 games. While the team won 12 games when McNeal led in scoring, they also lost 12 games when McNeal led in scoring, often coming when scoring as a whole was limited.

On the year, only McNeal and ECU sophomore forward Amiya Joiner finished the year in double digits for points. The next closest scorer was ECU senior guard Micah Dennis with 8.9 points per game. ECU freshman guard Karina Gordon showed flashes of ability to support Joiner and McNeal; the Pirates were 6-0 on the year when Gordon scored 10 points or more.

FInally, multiple collapses in the final quarters of games sunk the Pirates in more games than not. There were a few occasions during the season in which the Pirates held a late lead entering the final minutes, only to break down defensively to let teams pull away. A key example of this was the game against North Texas, where the Pirates fouled multiple opposing shooters in two of the overtime periods to extend the game.

A similar run was made in this year's conference tournament, with the Pirates winning each game they played against the likes of Memphis, Tulsa and UTSA. Going into the AAC title game with Rice, while the Pirates held them under 62 points, the offense went cold early, shooting 1-12 to open the first quarter. From there it was too much to come back from, thanks to Rice shooting 55% from three-point percentage.

The future of the Pirates will be interesting to see with the departure of McNeal and how head coach Kim McNeill tries to build on the end of this season without her.