Coastal Carolina men’s basketball to host CIT first-round game

The season isn’t over just yet for the Coastal Carolina men’s basketball team.

The Chanticleers announced that they will take part in the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) and host a first-round game next Tuesday night at The HTC Center against an opponent to be determined.

Chants coach Cliff Ellis had talked about this possibility after his team was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Big South tournament last Friday, expressing his desire to give his team an opportunity to script a better finsh to its season.

“Postseason play is a tremendous opportunity regardless of what [tournament],” Ellis said then. “Everybody wants what we’ve had the last couple of years, the NCAA tournament ... but I can tell you that when you are a mid-major going to a postseason tournament it is something that every player wants to do because you want to compete for a championship.”

The Chants (18-11) had reached the NCAA tournament each of the last two seasons and will be making their sixth postseason appearance overall in the last seven seasons, including two NIT appearances in 2010 and 2011 and a previous CIT appearance in 2012, losing 68-66 at Old Dominion.

The program is still looking for the first postseason victory in its history, although it did win an NCAA tournament play-in game over Jackson State in 1991.

Speaking last Friday, Ellis was also hopeful that senior forward Badou Diagne might be able to return after missing the last three games with a foot injury.

“I would certainly like to have the opportunity to maybe get Badou healthy and maybe send the seniors out in a different way and then be able to build [for] the future with our team,” he said.

The CIT consists of five rounds played over three weeks. The semifinals March 27 and championship game March 29 will be televised live on CBS Sports Network.

The entire 32-team field is made up of non-Power 5 programs who are not selected to participate in the NCAA or NIT tournaments and all 31 games are played on campus sites.

Last season Evansville defeated Northern Arizona for the CIT championship.

Tickets for the first-round game will range from $10 to $15 with students getting in free.

This story was originally published March 8, 2016 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina men’s basketball to host CIT first-round game."