ARLINGTON, Texas. – Senior Tyrell Gumbs-Frater scored all six of his points in the second half, but none was as big as his eight footer with one second left to send Coastal Carolina on to the second round of the Sun Belt Conference Championship with a 63-62 win over Texas Arlington.

The game featured eight ties and 15 lead changes, but UTA (14-18) led for over 28 minutes of the game and held as much as a 10-point lead (47-37) with just over 13 minutes left in the game.

 With the Chants (16-16) holding a 61-60 lead, UTA’s David Azore’s jumper with 10 seconds left put UTA up 62-61. Azore was fouled on the play, but missed the free throw setting up the final play.

Following three timeouts, the Chants ran a play designed specifically for Gumbs-Frater using the game’s leading scorer DeVante’ Jones as a decoy. Gumbs-Frater was able to curl in the paint off a throw in and his shot was true, hitting nothing but the bottom of the net. UTA attempted a long shot that was off the mark sending CCU into the second round of the tournament.

CCU struggled from the field only shooting 37 percent (21-57) from the field and an even worse eight percent (1-13) on its three-point attempts.

The Chants did not struggle from the free throw line where CCU hit 20-of-21 (95 percent). CCU needed every one of those charity tosses in the one-point victory.

Jones was one point off his career-high finishing with a game-high 31 points. He did set a career-best at the free throw line knocking down all 14 of his attempts. He also finished the game with his seventh double-double on the season with a game, team and career-high 14 rebounds. He also finished with five assists.

Tommy Burton was the only other Chant to reach double-digits finishing with 11 points. While the Chants had just two players reach double-digits, they did have seven players find the scoring column. Malik LeGania finished with five points and Tim Ceaser and Isaac Hippolyte had four each.

CCU did a better job on its turnovers only committing 11, but only two of those was in the second half. The Chants also won the rebounding battle 46-31 led by Jones. Burton finished with six and Tim Ceaser and LeGania had five each.

The Chants defense held the Mavs to 37 percent (22-60) shooting, but UTA hit 10 three-pointers, outscoring CCU 30-3 on those. UTA finished the game shooting 30 percent (10-33) from the three-point line and struggled at the free throw line only hitting eight of their 14 attempts (57%).

Sam Griffin hit four three-pointers in the first half, but only scored two in the second half to lead UTA in scoring with 14 points.
UTA’ leading scorer David Azore finished with 11 points, four below his average and Nicolas Elame scored 10.

UTA carried a 34-29 lead into the locker room at halftime as they hit eight three-point field goals. Griffin led the way with four threes and 12 points while Elame and Azore had seven each.

For the Chants, Jones had 11 first-half points with Burton adding nine as CCU struggled from the field only shooting 42 percent and only hit one of its three-point attempts. CCU did hit eight-of-nine from the free throw line.

Coastal now travels back to Boone, N.C., where they will face the sixth seed Appalachian State. The game will be played Monday, March 9 at 7 p.m. The Chants and Mountaineers just met back on Feb. 29 with CCU pulling out an 84-77 victory.