Coastal Carolina accepts postseason basketball invitation and will host a first round game

Though Coastal Carolina fell in the second round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament to Texas-Arlington to drop below .500 at 16-17, the Chanticleers’ 2016-17 season isn’t over yet.

CCU has accepted an invitation to play in the 10th annual College Basketball Invitational (CBI) presented by Five Four.

The Chants will open the 16-team, single-elimination tournament against Hampton University at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the HTC Center on campus.

Hampton is 14-16 and went 11-5 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference before being upset in the first round of the conference tournament by Maryland Eastern Shore.

The four Coastal Carolina seniors who have an opportunity to continue their college careers are guards Shivaughn Wiggins, Colton Ray-St. Cyr and Elijah Wilson, and forward Michel Enanga. Wilson has a chance to add to his more than 1,800 career points.

The CBI quarterfinals will be played March 20, and the semifinals will be played March 22 after the teams are re-bracketed. The finals will consist of a best two-out-of-three format where one of the two teams will host two of the games, if needed.

The finals games will be played March 27, 29 and 31, and ESPNU will televise each game.

Other teams in the CBI are George Mason, Loyola (Md.), Illinois-Chicago, Stony Brook, George Washington, Toledo, Wyoming, Eastern Washington, Missouri-Kansas City, Green Bay, Rice, San Francisco, Georgia Southern and Utah Valley.

This story was originally published March 12, 2017 at 11:21 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina accepts postseason basketball invitation and will host a first round game."