#5 - Coastal Carolina

The Chants are very quickly showing that they belong in SBC basketball.

POSITIVES: Three starters return from a 10-8 team, including two of their top three scorers and their leading rebounder. Jalen Shaw and Demario Beck both averaged double figures. Cliff Ellis' teams are typically stingy on defense. They won the battle of the boards last season by 3 per game and should do so again with Beck returning. They have adequate size. Their recruiting class looks like it could provide immediate help.

NEGATIVES: Gone is Elijah Wilson, who more than doubled the number of made 3s of anyone else on the team, although he did not shoot them particularly well. Also gone is Colton Ray-St. Cyr, who was a potent rebounder. This team did not shoot particularly well last season. Someone needs to replace Wilson with maybe a little better shot selection.

Cliff Ellis has 719 D1 wins in his career, so he knows how to get it done. You can expect that he will have CCU in the hunt more years than not.

(09-11-2017 08:46 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  #5 - Coastal Carolina

The Chants are very quickly showing that they belong in SBC basketball.

POSITIVES: Three starters return from a 10-8 team, including two of their top three scorers and their leading rebounder. Jalen Shaw and Demario Beck both averaged double figures. Cliff Ellis' teams are typically stingy on defense. They won the battle of the boards last season by 3 per game and should do so again with Beck returning. They have adequate size. Their recruiting class looks like it could provide immediate help.

NEGATIVES: Gone is Elijah Wilson, who more than doubled the number of made 3s of anyone else on the team, although he did not shoot them particularly well. Also gone is Colton Ray-St. Cyr, who was a potent rebounder. This team did not shoot particularly well last season. Someone needs to replace Wilson with maybe a little better shot selection.

Cliff Ellis has 719 D1 wins in his career, so he knows how to get it done. You can expect that he will have CCU in the hunt more years than not.

I'm getting depressed and you're not even up to your top 4. The league is getting stronger. I do believe Wes is a good recruiter, but it will likely take this team awhile to gel after replacing 5 starters. Hopefully, we'll be competitive with the best teams in the league by February and early March.

We won't finish last, but logically that probably is where we should be picked. Someone returning (Burns, Black, Jones, Marcus) is going to step up, and at least a couple of the newcomers will be the real deal. The problem in predicting is that we just know nothing about this team, so everything is a "maybe."

(09-11-2017 09:04 AM)MICHAELSPAPPY Wrote:  We won't finish last, but logically that probably is where we should be picked. Someone returning (Burns, Black, Jones, Marcus) is going to step up, and at least a couple of the newcomers will be the real deal. The problem in predicting is that we just know nothing about this team, so everything is a "maybe."

I've heard both Jones and Burns are looking really good. Burns was already really solid last year and Jones showed "flashes" and was obviously really talented. Black will be better and hopefully, at least, one of the 2 big senior transfers will be able to step in up front.