Coastal Carolina gave South Carolina all it could handle for a second straight year

For the second consecutive year, Coastal Carolina challenged South Carolina down to the final minutes.

And for the second straight year, the Chanticleers’ big brother in Columbia managed to hold them off at Colonial Life Arena.

CCU was within five points with 4:30 remaining Friday night, but a pair of Hassani Gravett 3-pointers pushed the advantage to 10 points and allowed the Gamecocks to hold off the Chants 85-79, as Coastal got no closer than five points down the stretch.

“We had our chances,” Coastal head coach Cliff Ellis said. “For the second year in a row we had our chances but we haven’t been able to pull it off.”

The Chants put a scare into USC at Colonial Life last year, seven months after the Gamecocks reached the Final Four. USC needed a three-point play by Gravett to take a two-point lead with 6 seconds remaining and survived a missed pull-up 3-point attempt from the top of the key by the now-graduated Jaylen Shaw to win 80-78.

The Gamecocks (4-3) got 23 points from Gravett and 25 points from his talented Canadian freshman backcourt mate A.J. Lawson in a largely fast-paced game on Friday.

Coastal (4-4) got a team-high 24 points from senior leading scorer Zac Cuthbertson.

Coastal opened up a 14-8 lead in the game’s opening 5 minutes behind eight early points from Cuthbertson on 3-of-4 shooting including 2-for-2 from three-point range. The Chants stretched the advantage to 19-11 on a 3-pointer by freshman guard David Pierce.

USC took a 30-27 lead after an intentional foul was called on freshman guard David Kralj midway through the first half, and the Chants responded with a baby hook by Amidou Bamba and 3-pointer by Kralj to retake the lead at 32-30.

Five consecutive points by Lawson on a 3-pointer then steal and layin after some fancy dribbling in traffic put the Gamecocks up with 7 minutes remaining in the first half. “I think going forward we can count on him to keep contributing the way he is,” Gravett said of Lawson. “. . . With him to come in with so much confidence and belief in himself to put the ball in the hole, we appreciate that and will keep asking him to do that.”

A 7-0 run over the final 3:30 of the first half gave USC a 50-41 halftime lead, and the run was capped by a Maik Kotsar 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer.

“They made a couple of big shots that hurt us,” Ellis said. “I thought the shot at the end of the half was a big one because it kind of stretched it out a little bit. Now we fought back and then Gravett made a couple pretty big threes. Both teams were trying to look for a basket and I thought Gravett made some big plays.”

Steals and offensive rebounding sparked a 7-1 CCU run to open the second half and cut the deficit to three points. Cuthbertson scored on a put-back, Trevion Brown had a breakaway dunk off a Tyrell Gumbs-Frater steal and Ajay Sanders hit a trey off a Cuthbertson steal.

Coastal outrebounded South Carolina 40-34, including 16-10 on the offensive glass, and committed 18 turnovers to USC’s 16. “The possession game we actually won it, but it was couple shots here and there that made a difference . . . and we had some untimely turnovers.,” Ellis said. “You have to give South Carolina credit. Their pressure was there and it created enough turnovers to get them buckets.”

CCU regained the lead on a Cuthbertson 3-pointer 5:20 into the second half that gave the Chants a 57-56 lead, and a nice inside move for a reverse layin by Tommy Burton gave CCU a three-point advantage.

But USC roared back, scoring 14 of the next 16 points to take a nine-point lead with 9:38 remaining. Silva had six points and Gravett five in the run.

South Carolina was coming off an 81-61 home loss to Wofford in which it shot a woeful 33.3 percent from the field, including 28 percent from three-point range (7 of 25). The Gamecocks entered Friday’s game shooting less than 32 percent on treys, andn shot 39 percent from the field, 48 percent from three-point range and 78 percent from the free throw line.

Protecting the middle and allowing some three-pointers was part of Coastal’s approach Friday.

“We were hoping they wouldn’t be (efficient on 3-pointers), but we know with this team that right now, and it’s still early, the game goes through Silva and Kotsar,” Ellis said. “So you’ve got to make other people beat you, and Gravett did what he was supposed to do, and at the same point in time Lawson played well too. Our game plan was there, it’s a three-possession game when you look at it at the end.”

Coastal was coming off an 88-57 win over Methodist after losing three of its previous four games to Tulane, Manhattan and Northern Kentucky with a win over UNC Asheville in the mix. Three of those games came in a tournament hosted by Northern Kentucky.

The Chants are young this season with seven players new to the roster, and are without who Ellis considers to be his top two point guards in redshirt freshman Devante Jones of New Orleans and freshman Ebrima Dibba of Sweden. Jones broke a foot in the second game of the season and Dibba broke a bone in his elbow two weeks ago. So Brown, a sophomore, started at point and senior Ajay Sanders has filled in there as well despite being more of a shooting guard.

“Each time this has happened, we have tried to develop a unit. All preseason we went with the opening point guard, then we tried to rally together in some games and put the backup in, and now we’re trying to go with the third guy,” Ellis said. “But when you look at it we had some guys that really played pretty well. And they’re freshman and learning and trying to find their way.”

Coastal started experience up front with senior Cuthbertson and junior Bamba, and junior Tyrell Gumbs-Frater also started at a wing. Freshman guards Kralj of Slovenia and Pierce of St. Petersburg, Fla., played a combined 48 minutes, as well.

The Chants feared another injury to a freshman guard Friday. Kralj headed to the locker room with an apparent knee injury with less than a minute remaining in the first half when Bamba took a charge but fell back into Kralj’s knee, which buckled and forced him to the floor. But he returned in the second half.

The Chants hope to get Jones and Dibba back sometime in January. “I thought when Coastal had its full team it was a very good basketball team,” USC coach Frank Martin said. “They’re undermanned at the guard spot right now they don’t have enough, and I think as the game went on his guards just kind of wore down.”

The Chants have four non-conference games in December before beginning Sun Belt Conference play in early January.

“We need to get some players back,” Ellis said. “For us to be where we need to be in the Sun Belt we’ve got to try to get some help back, but I think our guys are putting forth the effort and doing the best they can do.

“. . . I think we’re a totally different team with a totally different record if we’ve got those two guys. We could be undefeated. I don’t know. But that’s not the cards we’ve been dealt, and point guard is a critical position and we’re working on that to get it where it needs to get, and I know our guys will dig down.”

The Gamecocks are off to a sluggish start this season, now with four wins including a 35-point win over George Washington and three losses to Stony Brook, Providence and Wofford.

Coastal is now 1-3 against USC, with all of the games in Columbia and the lone win coming in 1992, the last year the teams played before last season.

This story was originally published November 30, 2018 at 9:15 PM.