WILMINGTON, N.C. -- The Coastal Carolina men's basketball squad continued to battle in road contests, but lost at UNC Wilmington, 80-68, Dec. 9. With the loss, the Chanticleers fell to 4-4 on the year, while the Seahawks advanced to 6-3.
Coastal got off to a slow start, as UNCW opened the game on a 11-4 run over the first 3:34, sparked by six points from forward Todd Hendley and five from guard T.J. Carter. After getting down by as many as eight at 19-11, CCU went on a 9-0 run sparked by senior guard Everage Richardson and freshman forward Anthony Breeze off the bench, to take the lead at 20-19 and again at 22-21. UNCW regained the lead, going on a 8-2 run to go ahead by five and stretched it to as many as seven in the final minutes. The Chants again found a late surge, including senior forward Phil Wallace's layup with four seconds to play in the half to cut the UNCW halftime advantage to two, 38-36. UNCW again jumped out to start the second half, getting the first four points to push their lead back up to six. Coastal came back and re-took the lead again at 50-48 on senior guard Jack Leasure's three-pointer with 13:30 to go in the half. Richardson's layup at 12:27 gave the Chants a 52-48 lead, but they couldn't hold on. With the hosts leading 61-59, guard Daniel Fountain canned back-to-back three-pointers to make it 67-59 and give the Seahawks a lead they would never relinquish, outscoring CCU 19-9 over the final seven minutes.
UNCW shot 52.5 percent (32-of-61) for the game, while Coastal shot just 45.8 percent (27-of-59), including just 13-of-31 in the second half. The Chants won the board battle 35-31, but committed 18 turnovers to the Seahawks' 12.Richardson finished with a career-high 19 points for Coastal, while Leasure and Breeze added 14 and 13, respectively. For UNCW, Carter tallied a game-high 27 points, including 17 in the first half, while Hendley finished with 14 and Daniel Fountain and Vladimir Kuljanin each had 13.
CCU will take the next week off for finals and look to snap its 25-game non-conference road losing streak when it returns to the court Sat., Dec. 15, traveling to Buffalo, N.Y. to take on Canisius. The return game of last year's ESPN BracketBusters is scheduled to tip-off at 4:15 p.m. The Chanticleers and Seahawks will wrap up the home-and-home series this year in Conway at Kimbel Arena, Wed., Dec. 19 at 7 p.m.
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