CONWAY – The Coastal Carolina men’s basketball team has been picked to finish seventh in the Sun Belt Conference in a preseason vote of the conference’s head coaches, the league announced Friday.
The Chants received 75 points in the poll and sophomore guard DeVante’ Jones, the 2018-19 Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, was named to the preseason second-team All-Sun Belt.
The poll had a surprise vote in the top spot as South Alabama, led by preseason Player of the Year Trhae Mitchell, received eight first place votes and 138 total points as the top preseason pick.
Behind South Alabama was UT-Arlington in second with one first place vote and 124 total points while Georgia Southern finished third in the poll, picking up a first place vote and 121 points.
Texas State also picked up a first place vote and finished fourth in the poll with 110 points, while Louisiana rounded out the top five with 92 points.
Just ahead of CCU in sixth place was Georgia State who had one more point (76) in the final tally than the Chants. Finishing up the top 10 were ULM (72 pts.), Appalachian State (30 pts.) and Arkansas State (33 pts.)
Little Rock (32 pts.) and Troy (22 pts.) were picked 11th and 12th, respectively.
Jones is coming off one of the best freshman seasons in CCU history. Despite missing 12 games due to an injury, the Louisiana native still scored 321 points and averaged 14.6 per game. He averaged over four rebounds and 3.8 assists per game while being second on the team with 31 steals.
He was the first freshman Chanticleer to be named the Sun Belt Conference Freshman of the Year and only the fifth freshman of the year in CCU men’s basketball history.
Courtesy: Coastal Carolina Athletics
