Pirate Fans,

I want to start out this time by saying thanks to everyone for continuing to participate in the "Letters". We got some more great questions and positive comments this week. I will post some information for the second year of "Mack's Mates" here next time. Hopefully, this support group can expand on a great first season in existence. We appreciate the support we receive for our basketball program and look forward to seeing you all soon.

Coach Mack

Coach, not a question, but a comment. At the end of your answer about our out-of-conference scheduling, you mention that we need to have patience. As you can see from my year of graduation, I am an old-timer at this point. In my opinion, you and Coach Holland are the best things to happen to ECU basketball since I have been associated with ECU. What we have needed for so long, besides athletes, is patience and continuity. I think we have finally gotten that with you. Your last two recruiting classes go along way to moving this thing forward. Don't get discouraged. If you can get this thing to even a decent level, fans will go crazy over ECU Basketball and Coach Mack. Best of luck! - Thomas Southern
Thanks for your kind comments. We are making progress toward being a regular in post-season play where anything can happen. Our players have bought into what we are doing and now it's a matter of executing the plan. We need some more pieces to the puzzle, but having this group together for the next two seasons is exciting. The stability you referenced is making a difference.

ECU used to bring in, what seemed like, a lot of foreign recruits (Gabe Mikulas, Moussa Badiane, etc.), but lately it seems we have kept our recruiting within the continental United States. Any reason?
We would sure love to have a Gabe and Moussa. The international pool of players is growing and we are involved. Our entire staff has connections overseas and I feel we can find some young men who would be a good fit for ECU. With the Olympics and the NBA, the game of basketball has easily become the most international of the major sports. I think you'll see us take advantage of that.

I recently heard a professional athlete say that chemistry was overrated. How big a factor do you think chemistry is between players on and off the court?
That's a great ongoing debate. Does chemistry help create a great team or does a great team develop chemistry? Chemistry is an elusive and volatile factor in every team. Basically, if the goal of team success is common to the group you will have good chemistry. Unselfishness and work ethic are the backbone of teams with good chemistry. This is exactly why we are constantly preaching, "play hard and play together." For such a young and inexperienced team like we have this year, these traits would facilitate our goal of improving over the course of the season. We do many team building and bonding exercises, but a having collection of like-minded individuals will go a long way to automatically having chemistry.

Coach, with the start of practice less than a month away I'm getting really excited about the upcoming season. I think the strength of our team is going to be our post play. With that said whom do you foresee being those players that will fill the three-point shooting void left by Sam Hinnant and James Legan?
I agree that post play will be a bigger factor than in my previous years here in Greenville. Chad, Darrius and DaQuan should be more consistently productive and get the ball inside regularly. Each of these players has improved in the off-season. Each one is bigger, stronger and has a better understanding of how to play and score. Jamar Abrams has proven he can be a consistent outside threat. I think there are several candidates to help him on the perimeter. Brock Young, Jontae Sherrod, and Chris Turner have all worked hard at improving their shot. Erin Straughn and Wakefield Ellison also can score the ball from long distance. As we've discussed in this space previously, we have more weapons and now our task is to become consistent threats.

I know you are limited on how much practice time you can have with individual players when not in season. In those sessions do you spend more time working on each individuals' own skill set or do you try to implement offensive and defensive sets as well?
Per NCAA rules, we can work on the court with each player two hours per week until the start of official practice October 16th. From the beginning of school until September 15th, we can have no more than four in a group. From the 15th till the start of practice we can work with as many as we wish. So, from the first day of classes, we work in four small groups on fundamental skill development. Without going into too much detail, we do include parts of our offensive and defensive schemes. This is where we try to identify and then improve on weaknesses and at the same time, fine tune strengths. From mid-September until mid-October we work twice a week in small groups and then once a week installing our offensive and defensive schemes with the entire team. This allows us to start immediately on team strategies once official practice begins. Our strength and conditioning program is done the same way. We work in small groups to target specific needs--such as agility or balance or just core strength. This allows for the maximum improvement for each individual player. We work twice a week in small groups in the weight room, once a week in a spirited high-energy team workout in the beautiful Murphy Center and then twice a week we condition on the court in Williams Arena.

I recently read an article on ESPN.com by Andy Katz about Conference USA. He referred to how there may be a changing of the guard at the top of the standings following the departure of Coach Cal at Memphis. He also talked about how the league needed to change its image. What are some of the things that you think C-USA can do improve its perception?
That was a really good article by Andy Katz on our league. Memphis May Have Company Atop C-USA

I thought he did a good job of assessing where we are as a conference. From what I've observed the league is well into the transition from what it was when ECU joined C-USA to what it's going to be. The commitment made by each conference institution, whether you are talking about coaching or facilities or whatever, is starting to pay dividends. Memphis clearly set the bar, and now the rest of the schools are working to be the best basketball school they can be. While we had major losses in Sam and James, I can't wait to see where we fit as the league continues to get better and better. As to your specific question of improving our perception as a league, we've got to go out and beat some folks. It's beginning to happen and everyone has some big targets on their schedules. Memphis has been doing their part and will continue to win big, but the rest of us now have to go out and beat some of those nationally ranked foes.

Are you ready for another year of Pirate sports! I'm very excited about everything that is going on within our athletic program, but I'm particularly excited about the start of individual workouts. We get a set amount of time with our players each week and they are really embracing the techniques and philosophies in which we are trying to instill in them. Our upperclassmen are leading the way for our newcomers, who are catching on. The next few weeks leading up to the start of practice in mid-October are very important to the development of each individual player as a part of our team concept. It's an exciting time for Pirate basketball.

I got some very intriguing questions for this edition of the "Letters." Thanks again to everyone who has submitted a comment or question. I really appreciate your enthusiasm and support. I look forward to continue to receive your e-mails. Now into the mailbox!

Go Pirates!

Coach Mack

Are we looking to reduce the number of games against Division II schools in the future? They are not considered come postseason time and have no effect on the RPI. Just wanted to know why we play some many non-DI opponents especially when there are so many DI teams in the region.
We are looking to reduce the number of non-division I games. Our schedule is basically finished for next season, for example, and it looks like we might have just one or even none. Putting a schedule together is a difficult challenge and not nearly as simple as many seem to think. I'll give you some examples:

This whole effort to improving the basketball program into one we will all be proud of is a complex, involved task with lots of pieces to the puzzle. Not in any particular order, but recruiting, coaching, strength and conditioning, marketing and promotion, scheduling, academic enhancement, individual player development (on and off the court), and sports medicine are all parts of changing the culture that are being addressed. Some areas are improving quicker than others, but they all require and are getting the attention needed to help us be a competitive, first class basketball program. We also are looking to improve out schedule with neutral court games in exempt events like the Paradise Jam this season and the Charleston Classic with a great field (possibly N.C. State, Charlotte, George Mason, The Citadel, Florida, Michigan, etc.) next season. We are headed in the right direction and with patience and positive support we will get there.

Where do you place this team with all the others you have coached over the years?
This team is going to be fun to watch. As I've stated before, we are better in lots of areas, but we've got to play hard, play together, and keep improving. If these guys will believe in themselves and each other, we will get better as the year goes along. While we surely have some weaknesses, we have more weapons, too. I'm not sure where this team would rank, since they are so young and we are facing some really big challenges, but I enjoy being around them.

It appears we now have 11 scholarship players on the squad. This should leave room for two scholarships next season. What as far as size and position are you looking for in these two openings?
It's nice that we will have this group of guys together for the next two seasons. That's rare in college sports, and we need to capitalize on that. We can be very selective in our recruiting, but we are looking at two positions--a guard who would make us better and a big that can give us needed depth and size.

When will you have pictures of the new players on their profile page?
Sometimes pictures take a while due to uniform shipping dates, gym availability, etc. but we hope to have them up in less than two weeks.

There was a lot of hype about Chris Turner last year. Can you talk about his development over the summer?
Chris Turner came in with great expectations (of himself and from us). His stress reaction injury really hurt his performance last season in that he lost all of the preseason conditioning and workouts where fundamentals are really emphasized. CT probably needed that as much as anyone and wasn't able to play until right before the first game. After that, he was behind two pretty darn good players in James Legan and Sam Hinnant which made his minutes each night were limited and inconsistent. I think these two factors hurt his performance and won't be a problem this season. We have big hopes for Chris. He's got a lot to improve on, but he has a great opportunity to have a major impact on this team.

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