Frankly, the East Carolina men’s basketball team has had a disheartening start to its 2015-16 season, showing in its failure to conquer its first conference win.

ECU currently has an 8-8 record, and is 0-3 in conference play. When looking at the teams the Pirates have played this season the schedule in itself is disappointing.

Head coach Jeff Lebo isn’t fully to blame for the lackluster schedule, or the failure of his players to perform, but where does that blame fall?

Athletic Director, Jeff Compher and Lebo sit down year-to-year, deciding on what teams the Pirates will get the opportunity to face. Perhaps their thought process is to pick out easy teams that ECU can beat without a doubt. However, putting tougher teams on the schedule might actually improve the basketball program here.

Now in his sixth year as head coach of the Pirates, no coach in school history has won more games in his first five seasons than Lebo himself, totaling 87 wins. So, with a proven coach leading the Pirates, the question is unclear as to why ECU hasn’t been able to get over the hump and into meaningful post-season play, outside of the CIT championship in 2013.

ECU has faced teams like USC Upstate and Grambling State. While North Carolina and Duke have hosted the Pirates in the past, the team hasn’t had the opportunity to face consistently challenging opponents outside of conference play. An occasional close game against a top-tier opponent doesn’t warrant a cupcake path, where ECU creates a facade of domination against mediocre teams.

Playing weak schools doesn’t challenge the Pirates enough to compete at their full potential. USC Upstate, South Carolina State, and Stetson are just a few of the not so great schools on ECU’s schedule. In all three of those games ECU wiped the floor with each team, never fully testing its abilities.

Bottom line, someone needs to give ECU a better schedule.

Certainly, ECU doesn’t have a current record of 14-2 like Duke, but given the opportunity to play a better team, the Pirates could surprise people with their performance, and even perhaps learn how to play against better competition.

Let’s look back when ECU was paired up with Duke in 2013, when shockingly enough the Pirates were able to hold their own, falling 83-74 to the Blue Devils. Falling nine points behind a team like Duke sounds a lot better than coming behind San Diego State, 79-54.

Certainly, ECU isn’t equipped to have a season schedule playing all nationally ranked teams, but given how the Pirates have done in the past, they are capable of performing well in tough situations.

Maybe the blame of ECU’s lackluster season performance relates to its weak schedule, and it rationally feeds into the notion as to why the students haven’t packed Minges Coliseum.

On days when you would expect to see fan support, only a few Minges Maniacs are waiting outside for the doors to open. However, after the first half dies down, it seems that the fans do as well. But really, who wants to see ECU bully Stetson around?

Ultimately, ECU has a great head coach who has a team of talented players, but with the boring schedule and transitively disappointing fan support, how will the Pirates turn this season around? Maybe ECU will beef up the schedule and bring the fans. Then we might see some more action like the Pirates scoring buckets in Cameron Indoor or the Dean Dome.

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