CCU basketball has tipped off. Why there will be few watching the teams at the HTC Center
The Coastal Carolina men’s and women’s basketball teams tipped off their delayed seasons on Saturday at the HTC Center, and there were very few people in attendance to witness it.
That will be the case for the entire season at the arena, which seats more than 3,200.
Because of restrictions necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, games at the HTC Center will be limited to 300 ticketed fans, not including additional spectators in the second floor Chanticleer Athletic Foundation suites, according to CCU assistant athletic director for media relations Kevin Davis.
The capacity limits are a combination of state requirements and Sun Belt Conference requirements for facilities set up specifically for basketball, Davis said.
No season tickets for the 2020-21 season will be sold, and it’s anticipated that a very limited amount of single-game tickets will be available for purchase. That will be determined based on student demand.
Season ticket holders for the 2019-20 season will be given priority for any available single-game tickets, and the school plans to provide ticket updates prior to each home game via www.GoCCUSports.com and athletic department social media channels.
All 2019-20 season ticket holders will automatically have their most recent seat assignment rolled over to the 2021-22 season.
The limited attendance was exacerbated this past weekend by the Thanksgiving break. The campus was closed, so the HTC Center was closed to outside tickets. Only those on the players/coaches pass list and those with a student ID were allowed into the games Saturday.
The women opened the season with an 88-56 win over S.C. State behind 17 points and eight rebounds by junior forward Aja Blount, and the men opened the season with a 117-68 win over North Carolina Wesleyan behind 28 points off the bench by junior college transfer guard Deanthony Tipler.
The men next host Columbia International at 6 p.m. Thursday and the women travel to N.C. State on Sunday.
All home games are being broadcast on ESPN+, which requires a subscription.
Both the men and women are hoping to get back to a level of play they reached last year – early in the 2019-20 season for the men and all season for the women.
Men’s hoops
CCU opened the 2019 Myrtle Beach Invitational with a 22-point win over then unbeaten Pac-12 member Utah to improve to 3-2 and had a six-point lead over Baylor, which went on to be ranked No. 1 in the country for several weeks, four minutes into the second half when sophomore guard Ebrima Dibba injured his knee and was lost for the season.
Dibba is back, and joins a roster that includes junior first-team all-conference backcourt mate DeVante Jones.
CCU returns nine players this season, including six who have started, and has added seven including redshirt-freshman Essam Mostafa, a former three-star signee who sat out last season and scored 21 points Saturday.
Cliff Ellis is in his 14th season as coach and enters the season needing only five wins to surpass Lefty Driesell and break into the top 10 of all-time NCAA Division I coaching wins. Among all active DI coaches, Ellis is fifth with 858 total collegiate wins.
Women’s hoops
The CCU women are coming off the best season in program history, setting a program record for wins with a 25-4 record and finishing second in the Sun Belt with a 15-3 mark in league play.
But Coastal will largely be in rebuilding mode. Coach Jaida Williams lost 2019-20 Sun Belt Player of the Year D.J. Williams and Defensive Player of the Year Naheria Hamilton to graduation, and returns Sun Belt preseason first-team all-conference selection Blount.
The junior forward played in 28 games last season, starting one, and was second on the team with 14.7 points per game while also averaging 6.4 rebounds. Forward Janae Camp is the lone returning starter.
Men’s soccer
The CCU men’s soccer team finished the 2020 fall season ranked fifth nationally in the United Soccer Coaches Poll.
The four-time Sun Belt champions broke into the top five the final few weeks of the season and their fifth-place ranking is the second-highest in program history.
The program’s all-time high ranking came during the 2015 season when the Chants were ranked as high as fourth during the season. The Chants were ranked 28th following the 2019 season.
CCU (6-1-1) won the Sun Belt championship game in penalty kicks over Georgia State (9-2-2) on Nov. 15 in Atlanta. The teams were scoreless through regulation and two overtime periods and CCU won on penalty kicks 4-3 with Emile Rzepecki, Claudio Repetto, Estaban Leiva and DZ Harmon scoring, and Tor Saunders getting the win in goal.
Volleyball
The CCU volleyball team finished the 2020 fall season ranked 14th nationally in the American Volleyball Coaches Association Fall Top 15 Coaches Poll after being in the poll in each of the final three weeks of the season, climbing as high as No. 12 on Nov. 18.
The Chants (18-1) lost the Sun Belt championship match in five sets to No. 11 Texas State (24-2), and star Anett Nemeth was lost to an injury in the second set.
Nemeth, of Hungary, was named the Sun Belt Player of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year for the second straight season and head coach Jozsef Forman was named the conference Coach of the Year for the second time. Ani Bozdeva and Brigitta Petrenko were named first-team all-conference, while Lina Perugini was selected to the second team.
The team set a program record by starting the season with 18 straight wins, surpassing the previous mark of 9-0 in 2019.
This story was originally published November 28, 2020 at 3:32 PM.
