ECU women’s basketball preparing to face “Big” Texas in NCAA Tournament first round

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - ECU women’s basketball preparing to meet Texas on Saturday to open the NCAA tournament. Coach Kim McNeill says she has a big, and we mean big, test against the Longhorns.

“They’re big. They are really, really big. They have an unbelievable rotation of post players that are 6 foot 3 and above. They’re physical, they are athletic. They really get after it on the offensive boards. That’s our biggest concern. Being able to box them out and limit them to one shot,” says McNeill, “They got some guards that can shoot it. Obviously, they get after it on the defensive end like we do. It’s going to be a challenge but it is going to be a good challenge.”

One of the biggest tests of facing the Pirates is staying in their game. Not playinig into Texas’ style. Synia Johnson helped them do that in the conference tournament.

“Everyone has nerves going into something like that. I really just try to keep my team together. I keep talking to them letting them know we are ok,” says Johnson, “Even if we are down or something. Or even if we are up we gotta keep playing hard.”

Two of the Pirates players have been in the dance before. Micah Dennis at Oklahoma State and Kimora Jenkins at Georgia. For the rest of the Pirates it’s a new experience.

“The first couple days eyes are going to be wide open. We just gotta keep locked in on what we have been working on all season long,” says McNeill, “Our motto doesn’t change. We just want to continue to get better. We still got a lot of work to do. We still got areas we can get better at. That’s going to be the focus.”

ECU and Texas meet at 10 PM on Saturday night. The game is being shown on ESPN.

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