Slumping Chants look for turnaround against Presbyterian

Coastal Carolina men’s basketball coach Cliff Ellis doesn’t want his team worried about the conference standings at this point. Nor does he want the Chanticleers looking back ... or, really, even very far forward.

Facing something of a crossroads in their season after losing back-to-back games to last-place Big South foes, the Chants have created quite a hill to climb if they want to compete for a regular-season championship.

But to Ellis’ point, they can only go about doing that one game at a time, and so the focus for now is simply on their matchup Thursday night against Presbyterian at The HTC Center.

“I think we’ve got to focus on not the past and not looking ahead; we’ve just got to take today and focus on being the best that we possibly can be,” Ellis said.

Coastal Carolina (8-8, 2-4 Big South) looked to be trending upward when it finished off a 19-point win over Winthrop on Jan. 2 for its fifth victory in a span of seven games. But that was followed by a 62-61 loss at home to Liberty and an even more humbling 76-61 loss Saturday at Longwood – two teams that combined for only one win over a Division I opponent before each topped the Chants.

And while Ellis doesn’t want his players thinking about it, the reality is the Chants now enter play Thursday night eighth in the Big South standings and already four losses back of co-leaders High Point and UNC Asheville.

“I’m trying to get [the pressure] off of them. ... The guys here have won 24 and 21 [games the last two years] and they’re sitting here looking at 8-8 and what’s going on?” Ellis said. “Also, we were injury-free for a couple of years. Now, it’s not the same team. Warren [Gillis] is not here. Josh [Cameron] is not here. Michel [Enanga] is not here. Colton [Ray-St Cyr] is not here. That’s four guys off that team, so you’re not the same team. You need to figure out that the past has nothing to do with what’s going on now, and you focus on what’s going on right now. ...

“I’m just trying to alleviate that pressure and get our guys to not worry about yesterday, don’t worry about tomorrow, focus on what’s going on right now. That’s the only way I know to do it.”

Gillis and Cameron, the program’s senior leaders last season, aren’t coming back, and Enanga underwent knee surgery last month.

But the good news for Coastal Carolina is that Ray-St Cyr, a versatile junior guard who started nine of the first 10 games before sustaining a broken wrist, is healing fast and will be re-evaluated next week.

Ellis has used the team’s practice time this week to work on improving its existing depth while continuing the development of 6-foot-9 freshman forward Kevin Holmes Jr., junior guard Ron Trapps and freshman guard Christian Adams along with working more with sophomore guard Jaylen Shaw on handling the point as part of a more defined second unit.

“We have taken this time to strengthen our bench. We have taken practice and really worked on the second unit a lot, because I think that’s where we’ve been trying to figure [it] out when we get other guys in the game,” Ellis said. “We’ve really been working hard on our depth. That’s a big, big, big factor, trying to get Jaylen at the 1, Trapps at the 2, Kevin Holmes at the 3 some, at the 4, even getting Christian Adams out there. ... Having a little bit of time has given us time to be able to work on that.”

The Chants get their chance to bounce back Thursday night against a Presbyterian team that has started the season 7-9 overall and 2-3 in the conference.

The Blue Hose are led by sophomore forward DeSean Murray – the Big South’s leading scorer at 21.4 points per game – while returning junior guard Markus Terry and sophomore guard Reggie Dillard in the backcourt.

“[Murray] is an All-Conference player. He’s an undersized post that has really made a name for himself,” Ellis said. “He does so many good things – he scores, he rebounds, he’s just tough. And Terry hurt us last year and Dillard hurt us a couple years ago. They’ve got pieces, and they’re better than they’ve been. ...

“In our conference I still feel there’s not a game we can’t win, but they’re going to be tough games, we’re going to have to dig things out. We’re not going to be like we’ve been the last couple years and go out and play bad and be able to win. And you’re not going to play good every time.”

The Chants have no shortage of talent, led by junior guard Elijah Wilson (13.4 points per game), senior forward Badou Diagne (12.4), Shaw (11.1) and junior point guard Shivaughn Wiggins (10.9), but Wilson and Wiggins combined to shoot just 1-of-18 from the field in that loss at Longwood and will be looking to bounce back in their own right.

While Coastal Carolina has typically controlled the series – winning 11 of the last 12 meetings – the Blue Hose won the teams’ last clash with an 80-69 victory in Clinton at the end of the regular-season last year in a game that cost the Chants a shot at a first-place finish. A similar result this time could in effect mean the same thing, albeit without the immediate finality.

But one game at a time for these Chants.

“Honestly I feel all of this that we’re going through right now is preparing us to be a better team,” senior forward Tristian Curtis said. “When we get Colton back and we’re running on all cylinders, it’s ultimately going to make us a better team. I’m confident still.”

This story was originally published January 13, 2016 at 8:32 PM with the headline "Slumping Chants look for turnaround against Presbyterian."