Men's basketball on a three-game win streak

The Chanticleers are on their best winning streak since November after defeating Arkansas State and Arkansas-Little Rock this past weekend.

On Thursday, Jan. 25, the Chanticleers defeated Arkansas State 62-47 at the HTC Center.

The Coastal defense was on it Thursday night as they held Arkansas State to a 25 percent shooting percentage. But, it was a good defensive game on both ends in the first half, the halftime score was 20-17.

Junior forward Zac Cuthbertson led the way in the first half with 10 points. The inside game for Coastal was strong as they outscored the Red Wolves 34-12 in the paint. Sophomore forward Amidou Bamba came off the bench and scored 10 points and pulled down eight rebounds.

In the second half, Coastal shot 52 percent from the field and hit four of its nine three-point field goals. Sophomore guard Artur Labinowicz had his first collegiate double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds while senior guard Jaylen Shaw had 13 points and also had a game-high of eight assists.

The Chanticleers managed to pull down 26 rebounds while the Red Wolves only managed to get 19. Turnovers weren't as high as they have been in the past few games. The Chanticleers had 12 turnovers and Ark-State was able to score eight points off of that.

The Chanticleers continued the winning momentum into Saturday's game against Arkansas-Little Rock, defeating the Trojans 72-62.

Bamba came off the bench and scored a career high of 18 points. Eight of the nine Coastal players that participated in the game was in the scorer's column. Ajay Sanders came off the bench as well and scored 13 points, making all three of his three-point shots. Shaw scored 13 points and had a game-high of eight assists while having just one turnover.

Coastal shot 50 percent from the field and outscored Little Rock 34-16 in the paint. The Chants shot 67 percent from behind the arc but, for the second consecutive game, they struggled from the free-throw line, just shooting 62.1 percent.

Senior forward Demario Beck led the team with seven rebounds, and Labinowicz had six rebounds as the Chants outrebounded Little Rock 37-29.

Little Rock led 42-41 in the second half but, from the 13:35 mark, The Chanticleers went on a 16-5 run over the next six minutes to open up with a 57-47 lead with 7:32 left. The Chants went on to lead by as many 15 before finishing with a 10-point win.

The Chants will travel to Texas next week and play Texas State on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. They will then travel to play Texas-Arlington on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 6:30 p.m.