In a game featuring seven lead changes and 11 ties, Georgia Southern men's basketball earned its third win over Coastal Carolina, winning 73-70 on Thursday.
The Eagles (3-15, 3-3 Sun Belt) won for the first time when trailing with 2:00 left this season as Coastal (5-12, 2-4) did not score over the final 1:30 after going up 70-67.
"40 minutes is a long time, and you have to have a next-play mentality," head coach Charlie Henry said."It's an emotional game, but you can't get too high or too low, and I thought the guys did a pretty good job with that."
The Chants scored first, but Tyren Moore and Eren Banks quickly erased the deficit to go up 5-2 following the latter's three. Banks had 14 points in the first frame.
Both teams traded blows for the remainder of the half, as Jamar Franklin's free throw gave the Eagles a 34-33 lead heading into the locker room.
A 9-0 run for the visitors made it a nine-point deficit for the Eagles, but clutch three-pointers by Eugene Brown III and Franklin knotted the game at 52 and forced a Coastal timeout.
The Chants once again pushed the lead to eight, but more clutch buckets by Brown and Banks made it a two-point game late.
Down 70-67, Moore shed a defender and nailed a corner three to tie the game up. Coastal missed both free throws and Nate Brafford was fouled after a huge offensive rebound.
After hitting one-of-two, Brafford grabbed a huge defensive rebound on Coastal's attempt on the other end. He sunk both free throws, and Moore grabbed the rebound on Coastal's game-tying attempt to seal a 73-70 win.
Banks led the way with a career-best 19 points on 6-9 shooting, one of four double-digit scorers for GS.
"It was all about coming together as a team and getting stops tonight," Banks said. "We just had to get stops, and we had key stops in big moments."
Moore (17), Avantae Parker (11) and Brown (10) each scored in double figures, with Parker's being a career-best. Moore led the Eagles with seven rebounds.
The Eagles survived shooting 41.2 percent overall and 38.5 percent from three in front of a raucous Hanner Fieldhouse, which made the difference in the win, the Eagles' fourth-straight over Coastal Carolina in the all-time series.
"The crowd was awesome tonight," Henry said. "We want to play well for them, and we want to win for them, they've been awesome and it's good to get a win for them."
A return date with Georgia State is in the cards on Saturday.
Women's Game: Second half surge sends JMU past Eagles 72-51
James Madison outscored Georgia Southern 21-9 in the third quarter to break open a two-point halftime game and pick up a 72-51 Sun Belt Conference victory on Thursday evening in Harrisonburg, Va.
The Eagles (13-5, 3-3 SBC) lost for the first time against their new Sun Belt rivals, while James Madison improved to 13-5 overall and 5-1 in the league with the victory.
Georgia Southern began the game by opening up a 15-8 lead, but JMU ended the half on a 6-0 run to close the gap to one point, 15-14.
The Eagles built the lead back to eight, 24-16, thanks to a 9-2 run to open the second quarter. JMU chipped away at the lead and took a two-point lead at the break, 33-31, on a transition three-pointer from Peyton McDaniel in the final minute.
Starting the second half, the Eagles tied things up on a Kayla Thomas layup, but another three-pointer by McDaniel at the 8:09 mark of the third quarter sparked a 9-0 run over a two minute and 35 second stretch that turned into a quarter-long 21-9 run. The Eagles could not get any closer than 13 points in the fourth quarter.
McDaniel led all scorers for the Dukes with 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting from the floor, including 3-of-6 from three-point range, while Olivia Mullins and Kseniia Kozlova each added 14 points. Georgia Southern was led by nine points by Terren Ward.
Stat of the Game
Georgia Southern was held without a field goal by the Dukes for a 12 minute and 30 second stretch covering the third and fourth quarters.
Quotables
Head Coach Anita Howard on the second half against the Dukes
"We allowed our shot selection and us not hitting shots to dictate our mood on defense, and you can't do that on the road. I thought we played a pretty solid game in the first half, but in the third quarter, we let the game slip away. We weren't hitting shots, we weren't looking to attack and we weren't looking to rebound. Those are three pillars of our program and when you don't do that, this is what you're going to get against a very solid JMU team."
Next Up
The Eagles travel to Appalachian State to take on the Mountaineers in a Sun Belt contest on Saturday, January 20, at 2 p.m. in Boone, N.C.
