It's off to the not-so-friendly confines of Williams Arena/Minges Coliseum in Greenville for the in-state collegiate basketball version of Back-to-the-Future on Friday evening. The on-again, off-again series between our Mountaineers and the Pirates is...On-Again! Friday's game will be the 65th contest between the two legacy rivals in a series that dates back to the 1934-35 season. Appalachian won that pre-WWII contest; while the Pirates took the last one in Charlotte's Bobcat Arena in 2012-13. East Carolina leads the series 35-29.

Speaking of Back-to-the-Future, ESPN+ viewers might do a double-take on the guy sitting in the cat-bird's seat on the ECU bench. If he looks vaguely familiar, it's not because you've lost your cognitive functioning. It's because former Pirate head coach Joe Dooley is back in Minges--now as the "journeyman coach" Joe Dooley freshly hired after five successful seasons at upstart Florida Gulf Coast. The guy has literally coached about everywhere, but now he's back in E-Z town.

Gotta wrap this fast. Too wordy. Not sayin' ECU has no talent--they do. Not sayin' Dooley can't coach--he can. Not sayin' the Pirates have no height and bulk--they're loaded.

What I am sayin' is that the Pirates are young. Their roster sports six true freshmen and just two seniors. That accounts for eight of their 13 player roster. They fill in with three sophomores and two juniors.

After tonight's 95-86 loss on the road at UNC-W, the Pirates are 4-4 on the season. Overall, save a blowout loss to Ga Tech, the Pirates have played a rather weak schedule to date. IMHO, Friday's matchup between the Apps and the Pirates is a very winnable contest for Jim Fox. The Mountaineers could use a D-I road win about now and this could be it.

Hate Purple!

We are 0-4 {and 2-0} .It's time to start winning.

About to tip-off on ESPN3

Looks like their attendance problems are worse than ours.

looks about the same

no problem with the production quality, very good

We can dominate this ecu team. Lots of easy layups from our guards and I love how hard our guys play. Despite the inconsistencies the last few years, Fox’s teams always go hard.

We are a big man who doesn't play matador D away from being real good - up by 2 at the half after leading by 10

We look very solid offensively. We’re scoring inside almost at will but the poor 3-pt shooting has kept us from blowing this open.

Solid job on rebounding but hopefully we can clamp down a little more defensively and bring this home.

57-46 with 13 mins left.

maddening

As per usual, if we were even average at FT this would be over

That and 1 was as bad a call as I've seen in a while

Some of the worse calls in the last 2 min. Their guy pushes their guy in the back and they called a foul on Secat and gave a NBA continuation foul. Un freaking believable

Shoulda been a foul called and Shabazz should be at the line.

No consistency in the calls.

Goal tend

Offensive basket interference and no call

One of the most humiliating collapses you'll ever see on any sport on any level.

This team just blew a massive 2nd half lead to one of the worst teams in D1 hoops.

Every single kid should be utterly ashamed of themselves. They should ask themselves whether they really deserve to wear a uniform and get a free education to humiliate the university like that.

How did we loose that game????? Yes there were 2 atrocious calls that went against us at the end (and they were awful), but we just cannot win a close game, period. We could have beaten them by 20.

We were up that much and lost? Oh my......

I guess DG bet wrong....