CCU was knocked out of the Sun Belt basketball tournament in OT, but is the season over?
Coastal Carolina will have to wait at least one more year to make its first men’s basketball NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015.
The Chanticleers fell 64-61 in overtime to Appalachian State on Sunday night in the semifinals of the Sun Belt Conference tournament at the Pensacola Bay Center in Pensacola, Florida.
Coastal’s season may not be over, however.
In addition to the NCAA Tournament, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), College Basketball Invitational (CBI) and CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) are held annually following conference tournaments.
The CIT is not being played because of the coronavirus pandemic. The NIT is being cut down from 32 to 16 teams with all games at the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and the Chants aren’t likely to receive an invitation.
Coastal (16-7) is a candidate for the College Basketball Invitational, though, which may or may not be played this year.
“We are exploring the possibility of holding the CBI,” said Connor Clark, account executive with the Gazelle Group, the marketing agency that stages the tournament. “We’re in the process of gathering information from teams to see if the event is doable. . . . Coastal is definitely one of the teams we have been in contact with regarding the CBI.”
The CBI is normally a 16-team tournament with games held at the site of the better seed. But because of the coronavirus, the Gazelle Group is looking to have between eight and 12 teams – preferably 12 – for this year’s event, and it would be held entirely at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida.
CCU head coach Cliff Ellis said Monday he anticipated being invited to participate in the CBI, and expected to know more this week. “Hopefully it will work out as we have had a great year,” Ellis said.
Coastal played in the 2017 and 2019 CBI tournaments, both times with success.
In 2017, the Chants lost the best-of-three championship series to Wyoming after wins over Hampton, Loyola Maryland and Illinois-Chicago. In 2019, they lost to DePaul in the semifinals after wins over Howard and West Virginia.
On Sunday, Coastal built and 11-point lead in the first half then needed three DeVante Jones free throws with 10 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime.
Jones, a Sun Belt Player of the Year candidate, finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds but hit just 5 of 14 shots from the field, including 1 of 7 from three-point range.
“I’m sorry teal nation, i couldn’t keep my promise,” Jones said on Twitter.
CCU shot 37 percent from the field and hit just 3 of 20 three-point attempts. The Chants also committed 22 turnovers, including on two of its last three possessions late in overtime.
Ebrima Dibba had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds for CCU and tied for a game-high six assists. Center Essam Mostafa had 15 points and nine rebounds, and Garrick Green had nine points and 10 rebounds, as CCU held a 51-38 advantage in rebounds.
Coastal hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament since it ended a two-decade March Madness drought with consecutive Big South Conference tournament titles in both 2014 and ’15 to earn its third and fourth NCAA appearances in program history.
The semifinal appearance is CCU’s best conference tournament showing since joining the Sun Belt in 2016-17.
The Chants (16-7) went 9-5 in the conference in the regular season, got a bye into the quarterfinals as the East Division’s No. 2 seed and defeated Troy 86-68 Saturday night to reach the semifinals.
App. State (16-11), the No. 4 seed in the East after going 7-8 in conference play, has defeated Little Rock, West No. 1 seed Texas State and CCU to reach Monday’s 7 p.m. championship game against Georgia State (16-5), which will be televised on ESPN2. The Panthers have won eight straight games.
In overtime, Adrian Delph hit a pair of 3-pointers to help App. State take a two-point lead with less than 3 minutes to play, and the Mountaineers would not trail again.
Delph hit one of two free throws with 18 seconds remaining to give App. State a two-point lead and Jones was stripped of the ball on the offensive end, leading to a pair of free throws by Justin Forrest that gave the Mountaineers a four-point lead with 9 seconds to play.
Coastal finished the first half on an 11-0 run to hold a nine-point halftime lead. The run was capped by a layin by Ebrima Dibba, who threw an inbounds pass off the back of a defender and gathered the ball for the score.
The Chants were outscored 22-6 through the first nine minutes of the second half to fall behind by seven points, and scored just eight points in the opening 11:30 of the half.
Michael Almonacy hit four 3-pointers in a span of 4:15 in a 15-2 run by the Mountaineers, and finished with 19 points to share game-high honors with Delph.
The Chants responded with a 7-0 run on a Dixon jumper, Mostafa layin and Tipler 3-pointer on a feed from Dibba to tie the game 42 with 8 minutes to play.
The Chants fell behind by two points before Dibba drove the lane on consecutive possessions for a pair of layins that gave the Chants a 46-44 lead with 4:30 to play, and Garrick Green hit a pair of free throws to give CCU a 48-44 lead with 3 minutes remaining.
App. State took a three-point lead with five combined free throws from three different players and a jumper by Adrian Delph, who scored 19 points to share leading scorer honors with teammate Michael Almonacy.
App. State was trying to foul before the Chants took a shot attempt in the closing seconds, but Jones was ruled to be in a shooting motion on a three-point attempt with 10 seconds remaining and hit all three free throws to tie the game.
Coastal played a zone defense on App. State’s final possession of regulation and the Mountaineers held the ball near midcourt before calling a timeout with 3.4 seconds remaining, then took a deep 3-pointer that bounced off the right side of the rim.
App. State hit just one field goal in the final 11 minutes of regulation yet still outscored the Chants 31-22 in the second half. The Mountaineers shot 30 percent for the game.
App. State hasn’t been in the NCAA tournament since 2000. It has won back-to-back overtime games to reach the championship game.
The Coastal women’s basketball team’s season ended with a 3-15 record with a loss to Little Rock in the first round of the conference tournament on March 5.
This story was originally published March 8, 2021 at 12:40 PM.
