CONWAY, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina men's basketball team will travel to Alabama to face Troy in a pair of important Sun Belt Conference basketball games that will be played on Friday and Saturday at Trojan Arena. Friday's action is set to begin at 7 p.m. ET and Saturday's game will begin at 5 p.m. ET.
The Chants will enter the two-game series in third place in the Sun Belt East Division, behind division-leading South Alabama and percentage points behind Georgia State. There are a number of variables that will dictate the final regular-season East Division standings heading into next week's 2021 Sun Belt Conference Men's Basketball Championship.
The Chants could finish anywhere from second to fifth depending on how all the games work out. The main variable is that if they win both games over the Trojans they could finish as the second seed in the East. A split of the two games or losing both games can see an entirely different seeding in next week's championship for Coastal.
CCU (13-6 / 7-5 Sun Belt) ended a season-long three-game losing streak when they defeated Georgia Southern 65-55 this past Sunday. The Chants hope to build on that win but will have to overcome this season's road woes as they have only won one of their six games away from the HTC Center.
Troy (10-14 / 4-10 Sun Belt) has not been an easy place for anyone to play this season as they have a 7-2 record on their home court and average almost 10 more points at home than they do on the road.
The series is even with both teams having five wins. CCU has won the previous three meetings, including come-from-behind wins when the teams met at Coastal back on Jan. 22 and 23. Those were games where the Trojans had 14-point leads in each game only to see the Chants come back and win those games in the second half by scores of 90-81 and 70-65.
The Chants will continue to lean on the leadership of
DeVante' Jones who leads the Chants in scoring at 20.5 points per game. It was good to have
Deanthony Tipler back on the court against Georgia Southern after missing a month of the season. He averages 15.3 points per game and still leads the Chants with 41 made three-point field goals despite missing six games.
Tyrik Dixon missed the win over Georgia Southern on Sunday but if he is back in the lineup the Chants will have another 11.2 points per game to rely on.
Essam Mostafa came off the bench for the first time this season against the Eagles and responded with a 10-point, six-rebound effort. He averages over 10 points per game and continues to be one of the top rebounders in the league averaging 8.5 per game.
Ebrima Dibba is coming off his first double-double game of the season with a 12-points, 10-rebound effort in the win over Georgia Southern. The sophomore leads the conference in assists with 98 and in assists per game averaging 5.2. He does his fair share of scoring as well averaging 7.7 points per game and is grabbing five rebounds per outing.
While the Trojans are only scoring 64.2 points per game, they do have some talented scorers led by Nick Stampley and his 12.3 points per game. Zay Williams averages 10.7 points and like Mostafa, is one of the top board workers in the league averaging 8.4 per game.
Troy also has one of the top freshman scorers in the league in Kam Woods. He averages 10.5 points per game and scored 49 points in the two games against CCU earlier in the season. One of those was a 28-point effort, connecting on 10-of-19 field goals and four-of-nine three points field goals in that game.
The games will be broadcast on ESPN+ (subscription required). Live stats will also be available at
www.GoCCUsports.com
For complete coverage of CCU men's basketball, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalMBB (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at goccusports.com.
