Monroe, La (WBTW) — In a close game that turned into a blowout and then turned into a shootout, the Coastal Carolina men’s basketball team prevailed over Louisiana Monroe 97-91.
Freshman guard DeVante’ Jones led the way with a game, team and career-high 30 points. He was 11-of-20 from the field and hit four long-range jumpers and hit all four of his free throws. He also had five assists and tied for game-high honors with three steals.
The first half was a close game the whole 20 minutes with the Chants holding a slim four-point lead at halftime. In the second half CCU scored the first 13 points of the second half and pushed its lead out to 20 (69-49) with over 14 minutes left in the game.
That is where the game became a shootout as ULM loaded up on the three-point field goals, hitting five consecutive during one run and cutting the lead down to four points (90-86) with just over a minute left.
Ebrima Dibba was able to give the Chants some breathing room with a basket and one with just 41 seconds left to push the lead back up to seven as the Chants held on for the win.
Zac Cuthbertson came back from a bad game at Louisiana to score 25 points against ULM. He also had a game-high seven rebounds and tied for team and game-high honors with six assists.
Tyrell Gumbs-Frater came off the bench to do his usual thing with 13 points. He hit two from beyond the three-point line and CCU added a fourth double-digit scorer as Tommy Burton finished with 12 points.
The Chants did a great job of passing the ball around on offense finishing with a season-high 22 assists. Dibba and Cuthbertson had six each and Jones added five.
CCU also won the battle on the boards by a large margin, 35-18. Nine of those were offensive rebounds and led to 13 second chance points.
Coastal shot 57 percent (37-65) from the floor and hit eight of its 21 three-point field goals (38%). CCU did not shoot a lot of free throws but did make them count knocking down 15-of-16 (94%). The 97 points CCU scored was the most points the Chants had scored this season and the fifth time the Chants have cleared the 90-point plateau.
Turnovers were a little bit of a problem with CCU committing 13, but they also had nine steals and four blocked shots.
ULM had its share of scorers in today’s game, with the Sun Belt’s leading scorer Daishon Smith finishing the game with 29 points. The Warhawks hit 17 three-pointers and Smith had his share knocking down seven.
Travis Munnings finished the game with 23 points while Tyree White came off the bench to score 16 and JD Williams scored 11.
While CCU shot over 50 percent from the field, so did ULM. The Warhawks shot 54 percent from the field hitting 32-of-59. They were deadly on their three-point attempts shooting 52 percent (17-33). The area shooting the ball that hurt ULM was at the free throw line. They came into the game second in the conference at 76 percent. In today’s game they only hit 10-0f-17 for 59 percent.
The Chants shot 55 percent in the opening half and took a 45-41 lead into the locker room. Cuthbertson led the way with 15 first half points and Gumbs-Frater came off the bench to score 10.
CCU out rebounded the Warhawks 19-7 and scored five points on second chance points.
The Chants did turn the ball over seven times which led to seven ULM points.
The home-standing Warhawks shot 50 percent from the field and hit seven three’s. Munnings hit four of those threes and had 16 first half points. The Sun Belt’s leading scorer Daishon Smith hit three from long distance and had 12 points in the opening half.
The Chants will be home for its final two regular season games. South Alabama will be in Conway Thursday March 7 for a 7 p.m. game. The regular season will come to an end Saturday March 9 against Troy at 2 p.m.