Shaw drains game-winning 3 to send Chants to victory

Sophomore guard Jaylen Shaw was having a rather quiet Sunday afternoon for Coastal Carolina, but that didn’t matter. He was the one coach Cliff Ellis wanted taking the final shot in a tied game.

And, sure enough, with the final seconds ticking down Shaw elevated from the right wing and drained a 3-pointer to bring the crowd inside The HTC Center to its feet and send the Chanticleers into a 10-day break with a hard-earned win.

In a game that featured 13 lead changes, Coastal Carolina struck last for a 68-65 victory over visiting Alabama State before an announced crowd of 1,510 to win for the fourth time in five games and improve to 7-5 while wrapping up non-conference play.

“In the timeout coach just said we’ll get it in and go to me since I had the best matchup – just take the shot and see how it goes,” Shaw said. “It felt real good, [and] I was lucky enough that it went in.”

He had missed his first two 3-point attempts in the game and had scored only six points before that clutch game-winner, finishing with nine points and six assists.

Junior guards Shivaughn Wiggins and Elijah Wilson scored 13 points each for the Chants, senior forward Badou Diagne finished with 11 points and eight rebounds, junior guard Ron Trapps dropped in 11 points off the bench and senior forward Tristian Curtis added eight points and eight boards.

Alabama State (4-6) had taken a 60-59 lead on Corvon Butler’s layup with about five minutes remaining before Wiggins put the Chants back on top with two free throws with 4:39 on the clock.

A couple possessions later, Wilson – who had a rough shooting night overall while finishing 4-of-14 from the field – connected on a 3 from the right corner to make it 64-60.

But true to the ebb and flow of the game, the Hornets answered right back with the next four points to tie it again.

Diagne made one of two free throws with 1:23 left to give Coastal Carolina a 65-64 lead, and with 11.1 seconds remaining Alabama State’s Torloft Thomas drew a foul near the basket to head to the line for two shots.

After he missed the first one, the teams returned to the sideline for a 20-second timeout and Ellis laid out his plan for the Chants’ final possession.

Thomas would convert on the second free throw for the eighth tie of the game, Shaw then inbounded the ball, got it back and was moving left to right as he got off that final shot to put the Chants back ahead with 2.1 seconds on the clock.

“It just builds that confidence for me and my teammates,” Shaw said. “The game was close, we needed one and I was able to step up and knock down the shot.”

In two games since returning to the starting lineup, the former South Carolina Gamecock has come up big with 21 points Friday at Wake Forest and then the poised finish Sunday.

“I told our team, ‘Get the ball to Jaylen.’ I said, ‘Spread the floor out and just let him make a play,’ ” Ellis said. “… We felt like we wanted the ball in his hands, that he could make the play and it just worked. It was a tougher shot than we wanted it to be, but he made it and that’s the bottom line.”

Alabama State was 19-10 last season and was playing its ninth game out of 10 overall away from home.

The Hornets garnered some attention earlier in the season with a win at Virginia Tech.

“Alabama State is a good team. You can see that. As you see this team play – they’ve only played one home game – you can see why they were able to go to Virginia Tech and win,” Ellis said. “They’re a very good basketball team. They would be very competitive in our league. They shot the ball well, they rebounded, they’re well coached. This was a good win. It was a hard-fought win. We had to dig down.

“We played three games in a week, that was a challenge to our team, but our team met it and pulled it out. It was a good win.”

The Chants are still finding their way in the wake of losing two key contributors to injury in junior guard Colton Ray-St Cyr (broken wrist) and senior forward Michel Enanga (knee surgery).

Trapps, who scored nine of his 11 points after halftime, is one of the players who has taken on a bigger role since those injury setbacks and he was big for the Chants on Sunday.

After shooting 1-of-4 from the field in the first half, he found his rhythm after the break. During one stretch early in the second half he turned a steal into a fastbreak layup, then hit an open 3 on the next possession and soon followed with another jumper while going on his own 7-3 run.

“I’m just grateful for the opportunity,” he said after playing 15 minutes in the win. “Losing Colton and Michel was a big hit for us and I’m normally a come-in catch-and-shoot guy, but we needed energy and I just did whatever I needed to do to help the team win.”

Said Ellis: “Very pleased with Ron Trapps. I think his game’s coming around, but I really liked his hustle stuff. He had a couple loose balls that I thought were very big for us.”

Coastal Carolina’s only loss in the last five games was an 83-77 defeat at ACC foe Wake Forest on Friday, and the Chants will now enjoy some needed rest before diving back into Big South play on New Year’s Eve at Gardner-Webb.

“We’ve had to change lineups so much, it’s been a grueling preseason all around and our guys have never let up,” Ellis said. “We’re still trying to figure out who we are, we’re still trying to put things together, but we’ve had some very, very good wins with a stacked deck. And when I say stacked deck, one injury after another hitting us and knocking us down. And I think we’ll be in a lot of these games we were in today.

“When your depth is just cut down, you’re going to have to just find ways to grind it out and it’s not going to be anything easy. We’re going to win some games and there are going to be some games that might be tough. We just have to try to dig out as much as we can.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2015 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Shaw drains game-winning 3 to send Chants to victory."