MOBILE, Ala. – Coastal Carolina scored 11 seconds in the game and never trailed in an 81-69 defeat of the University of South Alabama men's basketball team Saturday afternoon at the Mitchell Center.

The Chanticleers (8-5, 1-1) put all five starters in double-figures, led by Tommy Burton's 19. Burton (12 rebounds) and DeVante Jones (15 points, 12 rebounds) ALSO had double-doubles.

CCU built a 12-point lead at halftime after holding USA to 20.0% shooting from the floor. The Jaguars mounted a comeback and got within 10 with 3 ½ minutes to play, but Coastal Carolina pulled away at the free-throw line.

Graduate Chad Lott paced the Jaguars with 19 points, 17 in the second half alone. Seniors Herb McGee and Don Coleman had 12 points each.

GAME FACTS
- Coastal Carolina jumped out to a 16-8 lead in the first eight minutes
- A 3-pointer from USA senior Andre Fox at the 10:44 mark would be the Jaguars' last for over 6 ½ minutes; they missed nine straight shots and had three turnovers
- On the other end of the floor, the Chants weren't much better, going 2 for 11 from the floor over that span and led by just four with four minutes left
- Coastal Carolina ended the half on a 10-2 run to take a 33-21 advantage into the break
- The Chanticleers scored the first five points of the second half to open up a 17-point lead, and two free throws from Burton made it a 47-29 advantage five minutes in
- An 11-3 USA run, the final seven coming on a '3' from senior Trhae Mitchell and two layups from Lott 15 seconds apart, got the Jaguars within 11 with 4:29 to go
- South Alabama senior Don Coleman made it a 10-point contest with 3:35 on the clock with a triple, but Coastal Carolina's Tyrell Gumbs-Frater answered on the other end with a trey of his own following an offensive rebound
- Lott went 2 for 2 at the line with just under two minutes left to get it back to an 11-point contest; however, CCU converted 5 of 6 at the stripe and got a layup from Jones for seven unanswered points to put the game away

NOTES
- South Alabama's .200 shooting percentage in the first half is a new season low and the second-lowest in any half under head coach Richie Riley (18.9% vs Jacksonville, Nov. 17, 2018)
- Coastal Carolina scored 42 points in the paint, tied for the second-most by an opponent this season; in the last three games, South Alabama is giving up 45.3 points in the paint
- Coleman's point total set a new season high, and McGee's tied his set just three games ago at Richmond
- Mitchell just missed a double-double with eight points and a season-best 10 rebounds; he also added five assists and three blocks
- Mitchell has recorded three or more blocks four times in his last six outings
- USA falls to 1-6 when losing the shooting battle, and 1-5 when being outrebounded
- CCU won the battle of the boards 53-32, and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds
- Coastal Carolina's rebounding total is the most by an opponent since Tulsa had 53 on Nov. 21, 2009, and tied for the sixth-most all time by an opponent
- The Jaguars held the Chanticleers' leading scorer, Keishawn Brewton, to just 1 point on 0-for-5 shooting

THEY SAID IT
Head Coach Richie Riley
Opening statement: "It was very similar to Thursday, we showed up with very little emotion and energy and you can't win ballgames like that.  Ultimately when you watch good teams play no matter the level — middle school, high school, college or NBA — good teams take on the personality of their head coach, but I just told this team in the locker room they are nothing like me; that means that I have not done a very good job.  For me to get here I had to fight and scrap, be extremely competitive, work really hard and embrace competition, and our team doesn't do any of that.  What that says is that I've done a poor job of relaying the culture of who I am and who our program is supposed to be to the guys who have been here who we inherited and the new guys who we recruited.  I'm disappointed, I am sure everyone else is too, but we have to find a way to get to this group and play at a much higher level if we expect to win games."

On the Coastal Carolina game: "They owned every loose ball, they had 17 offensive rebounds — which is outrageous, and a lot of them were 50-50 balls in the air that we didn't get — and they just punished us.  We played really bad, we shot 20 percent in the first half to let them build a lead; they extended that lead, then we fought back a little bit but it ended up we couldn't catch them.  Defensively, the loose balls and the effort is what lost us this game.  When you get outrebounded by 21 and you allow them to shoot 47 percent, you're not going to win very many games with those statistical lines."

On the team's shooting performance in the game: "We got blocked a lot tonight.  If you watch the film, we took some mid-range jumpers.  Chad Lott takes all mid-range jumpers or layups, and Andre Fox took some that didn't go.  The game is essentially a '3' or a layup, that's what the game has become if you watch it at any level.  We just didn't make shots, but that's not why we lost.  A lot of times people look at your percentages, but we didn't do anything else to help us win — we didn't rebound the ball, we didn't defend very well, we didn't play the game the right way.  A lot of times it goes hand in hand, when you do those things the ball seems to go in and when you don't do those things then you don't make a lot of shots and you shoot 20 percent in a half.  We took some mid-range jumpers, I don't think that necessarily was the issue.  We didn't make very many, and we got blocked at the rim.  We missed some in tight, we missed a lot of layups and a lot of wide open 3s.  We got shots, but our concentration level wasn't good enough to make them."

On the team's upcoming schedule: "We'll get back on Christmas and practice that night to prepare for Mobile.  We have to form some consistency with this team learning what it takes to win, the things that go into winning.  With 100% certainty our guys know that, but we're not doing it.  We're not playing at a level to win ballgames in the Sun Belt Conference, or any conference right now.  We're not playing hard, we're not competitive, we're not focused.  Trust me, we're working at it, we work really hard in practice — as hard as anybody — to prepare to play these teams, then we get out there and it comes down to those 40 minutes against guys we don't see every day.  The last two games, we haven't responded well.  App State out-toughed is, they gave more effort and had more energy, they made more plays, and Coastal did the same thing today.  You just can't win games like that, and we know that; we have a veteran group.  But when we get in between the lines we're not playing at the level we need to and it's my job to get us there.  I've obviously got my work cut out for me, but we are going to work relentlessly until we get it fixed."

UP NEXT
The Jaguars take on Mobile next Saturday at 3 p.m. in their final non-conference contest of the season.

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