Coastal On A Roll

Hey guys – sorry it’s been so long since my last post, but I’m a political junkie and have been engrossed in the South Carolina GOP primary.  Now that my focus is back on Coastal, let’s talk about the last 18 days for our Chanticleers!

The Basketball team is on a roll. The 4-1 stretch started with a three game win streak over Charleston Southern, Gardner Webb and Presbyterian.  Then, CCU suffered a loss on the road to the team voted pre-season #1 in the Big South, UNC-Asheville (88-81 final score).  Finally, Coastal demolished Radford 82-62 Saturday.

Coastal has lost two Big South games this season.  Both of those games were on the road to the teams now #1 and #2 in the Big South Standings.  Coastal will have a chance to make up for these setbacks when UNC-Asheville and Campbell visit Kimbel Arena later this season.

The great thing about this team is that it does not rely on one star player to get the job done every night – it has been a total team effort this season.  Raffa and Gradnigo led the team in scoring with 16.8 and 15.8 points per game respectively.  McLaurin and Pack are leading Coastal in rebounding, with McLaurin pulling down 8.1 boards per game and Pack not far behind with 6.5.  Both players also average 1.3 blocks per game. 

Now for the men who set up the scoring with great passing: Greenwood has 4.3 assist per game and Nieman comes in behind him with 2.7 assists.  Players not mentioned that also play significant minutes for Coastal are Brandon Crawford, Dexter Moore and Warren Gillis.  All three of these players average more than 10 minutes a game, with Gillis leading the way playing 16.9 minutes per game off the bench.

Coastal hopes to use this total team effort to continue the roll against Presbyterian on the road Thursday night.  PC is currently 2-6 in the Big South and 8-10 overall this season.  I believe this should be another win for the Chants.  Here’s hoping they can keep rolling right into March!