After a roller coaster season that saw a few key players and Pirates Head Coach Jeff Lebo all miss some games, the East Carolina men’s basketball team prepares to bounce back after a loss in quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference Basketball Championship.
The Pirates started the 2016-17 season off hot by winning seven of their first ten games. ECU easily handled the historic black colleges they faced in that stretch, defeating Grambling State, North Carolina A&T, Hampton University, and North Carolina Central University, who went on to win the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. NCCU went on to play in the NCAA Tournament, where it was defeated by the University of California, Davis in the First Four round of the tournament.