Coastal Carolina Men's Basketball Gets 64-56 Road Win at Charleston Southern
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina University men’s basketball team (18-3, 8-1 Big South) improved to 5-0 on the road in Big South games with a hard-fought 64-56 win over Charleston Southern (10-9, 5-4 Big South) Jan. 23 in North Charleston, S.C. The Coastal win coupled with a Radford loss to Liberty puts the Chants two games ahead in the league at the halfway point of the conference schedule.
Charleston Southern started the game with a put back dunk from Kelvin Martin and two triples from Jeremy Sexton, giving the Bucs an early 8-4 lead. Coastal would answer with a 7-0 run, capped by a Kierre Greenwood three at 15:37. CSU retook the lead at 10:17 on a Tom Tankelewicz three-pointer, but after a long scoring drought by both teams, the Chants took a 22-19 lead on a steal and layup from Harris at 7:09. A Chad Gray jumper at 5:59 made it 24-20 Coastal. Charleston Southern would tie the game at 24 on a Zimmy Nwogbo layup at 2:41, but the Chants would outscore the Bucs 6-2 the rest of the way, including banked three-pointer from 32 feet by Mario Edwards as time expired.
Harris had 10 first-half points, going 5-of-7 from the field. Greenwood added eight as he was a perfect 3-of-3 shooting. Coastal Carolina shot 50 percent in the first 20 minutes, compared to 37.9 percent by the Buccaneers. Tankelewicz and Martin led CSU with seven points apiece. The Bucs outrebounded the Chants 20-12, including a 9-1 advantage on the offensive glass.
Harris would score the Chants first six points of the second half, giving Coastal a 36-29 lead at 17:31. Coastal would take a 42-34 lead at 13:36 on a Gray layup, but the Bucs scored the next six points, as a Patrick Shaughnessy dunk made it 42-40 with 11:43 left. Charleston Southern would take a 47-46 lead at 6:56 on a layup from Martin. Charleston Southern had its biggest lead of the half at 5:36 on a Jamarco Warren three, his only one of the game that made it 52-50 Bucs. Coastal’s stingy defense then held the Bucs to just four points the rest of the way. At 4:10, a Sam McLaurin rebound gave way to a Greenwood layup, giving the Chants a 54-52 lead. McLaurin then had a layup of his own at 3:08, giving the Chants a four-point lead. Coastal would take an eight-point lead (62-54) on a Harris layup at 1:05 and his free throws with 10 seconds left gave the Chants the final 64-56 margin.
Harris scored 22 points to lead the Chants. He added eight rebounds and had a game-high four steals. Greenwood was the other Chanticleer in double figures, scoring 14 points and dishing out four assists. Gray had nine points, while Logan Johnson had a game-high five assists. McLaurin had nine rebounds to go along with six points.
For Charleston Southern, Martin led three players in double figures with 15 points. He added 14 rebounds for a double-double. Sexton and Tankelewicz added 11 points apiece.
The Chanticleers forced 16 turnovers in the win and had 42 points in the paint. The Chanticleers also dished out 14 assists. Charleston Southern had the 40-30 rebounding advantage, including pulling down 16 offensive boards.
Coastal shot 49 percent from the floor and were 12-of-16 from the free-throw line. The Chants also held Charleston Southern to 38.7 percent shooting and 5-of-21 from three-point range.
Coastal Carolina continues its three-game road swing with a visit to Presbyterian, Thursday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m
