East Tennessee St.  (#16, East, Dayton pod)

vs. Pittsburgh (#1)
Mar. 20 @ 2:55pm
Vegas Line: ETSU +20

General Profile

Location: Johnson City, Tennessee
Conference: Atlantic Sun — Tournament Champion
Coach: Murray Bartow, hired 2003. Record at ETSU = 118-71
08-09 Record: 23-10 (14-6)
Last 12 Games: 8-4, won 5.
Best Win: vs Jacksonville 85-68 on 3/7/09 for the Atlantic Sun title.
Worst Loss: at Florida-Gulf Coast, 61-64, on 1/12/09.
Off. Efficiency Rating: 105.3 (105th)
Def. Efficiency Rating: 100.3 (149rd)

Nuts n Bolts

Star Player(s): Kevin Tiggs (6’4″ senior guard), 21.5 ppg on 54% shooting.
Unsung Hero: Mike Smith (6’6″ junior forward), 17.5 ppg/7.7 rpg/1.3 steals/gm.
Potential NBA Draft Pick: None.
Key Injuries: No significant injuries.
Depth: 28.4% mins (230th nationally)
Achilles Heel: Shooting the three. ETSU shoots 33.6%, 184th in the nation.
Will Make a Deep Run if…: …they improve their offensive efficiency. ETSU averages 74 possessions per 40 minutes, which is 17th in the nation. They need to take advantage of each one of them to pull of an upset(s).
Will Make an Early Exit if…: …they can keep their main three players — Tiggs, Smith, and Courtney Pigram — out of foul trouble, since they each play about 34 minutes/game with the other two spots on the floor basically platooned.

NCAA History

Last Year Invited: 2004
Streak: 1
Best NCAA Finish: 1992, Second Round.
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): n/a

Other

Six Degrees to Detroit: Two of ETSU’s starters (Kevin Tiggs, Greg Hamlin) are from Flint.
Distance to First Round Site: 407 miles
School’s Claim to Fame: ETSU has the only master’s degree program in the discipline of Storytelling.
School Wishes It Could Forget: How everyone violates/ignores last year’s campus-wide smoking ban.
Prediction: First round and out.

Major RTC stories: 4 Tickets Punched, 61 To Go

Preview written by: John Stevens, Rush The Court.

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 1:41 am by rtmsf and is filed under 2009 Tourney Preview. Tagged: 2009 Tourney Preview, etsu, kevin tiggs, mike smith, murray bartow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.