Coastal handles ULM to get fourth straight win

On Thursday, Jan. 31 the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers defeated the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks by a final score of 92-81.

Senior forward Zac Cuthbertson led the way for the Chanticleers as he scored a game-high 29 points while bringing down eight rebounds. Cuthbertson was joined by freshman guard Devante Jones who continued his hot streak by contributing a career-high 25 points while also dishing out 7 assists in arguably his best overall game of the season.

Tyrell Gumbs-Frater joined Cuthbertson and Jones as the third Chanticleer to reach double figures in scoring as he dropped 12 points, with nine of those coming from three-point range with the other three coming from the free-throw stripe.

Louisiana-Monroe was led in scoring by Forward Travis Munnings who scored 23 points, as well as Guard Daishon Smith who put up 21 points of his own.

While Louisiana-Monroe was able to keep the game close in the second half (they cut the lead to five points on a few separate occasions) they never did lead at all during the game. From the opening tip, Coastal Carolina controlled the tempo as they jumped out to a 20 point lead halfway through the first half and racked up a total of 25 points off of fast breaks compared to the Warhawk’s mealy nine fast break points.

A key to the Chanticleers fourth consecutive victory was how CCU bested ULM at their own game.

Louisiana-Monroe – a team known for their incredible three-point shooting – were out shot from behind the arc 52.4 percent to 44.8 percent. Coastal Carolina also shot better from the free-throw line (79.4 percent to 76.9 percent) and shot better overall (52.9 percent shooting for the game compared to ULM’s 45.3 percent shooting).

What stood out even more for the Chanticleers was their ability to take care of the ball, coughing up only eight turnovers and allowing ULM to score only nine points off of turnovers while simultaneously turning 10 takeaways into 16 points.

The Chanticleers look to keep the winning streak alive and go for a fifth straight victory this Saturday, Feb 2 against the University of Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns at home in the HTC Center. Tip-off is at 2pm E.T.