Win Streak Ends, but Cougars Still Claim #1 Seed

They haven’t reached the “mountaintop” that fans envision — a trip to the NCAA Tournament — but Earl Grant and the Charleston Cougars checked off a major accomplishment this week by capturing the school’s first ever CAA regular season championship.

Thursday’s 79–58 win over Elon was Charleston’s 11th straight, and guaranteed them a share of the best conference record this season. By way of a 2–0 series victory against Northeastern, the Cougars assured themselves the top seed in next week’s CAA Tournament. It’s the first regular season title since the Cougs won the SoCon in 2011.

The game seemed like anything but a lock early on. After an emotional Senior Night ceremony, both teams opened the first half without many fireworks. Elon was determined to close off Chealey and Riller’s driving lanes, electing to pack the paint and dare CofC to shoot from outside. The Cougars responded well early, as Evan Bailey (getting the start), Cam Johnson and Grant Riller scored four of Charleston’s first five field goals from behind the arc to take a 14–2 lead by the 11:43 mark.

But then the Cougars started to cool off right as Elon finally started warming up. With Matheny’s reshuffled lineup, Dawkins and Santa Ana (normally starters) came off the bench and spurred a Phoenix run that trimmed the Charleston lead down to 16–12 with five minutes to go in the half. A pair of threes from Chealey helped give the Cougars some breathing room going into halftime.

After the break, the Cougars really opened things up. With Elon still leaving several feet of space to Charleston’s shooters, baskets started pouring in. Charleston scored 50 points in the second period, and was 10–18 from behind the arc in those 20 minutes. Grant Riller had 23 points in the second half, capping another 30-point game, and drilled five of seven treys in the 2nd.

The Cougs opened up a 20+ point cushion early in the 2nd half and never looked back. Not even an off night from Jarrell Brantley — 4 points (1–12 FG, 0–5 3pt) — could deter the offense with Chealey and Riller combining for 52.

Charleston cruised to a 79–58 victory, which was all they needed to secure the #1 seed next weekend. The players, coaches and staff met at halfcourt to accept their regular season championship trophy from league commissioner Joe D’Antonio as confetti blasted onto the court to the tune of Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration”.

It was the perfect ending to Senior Night, watching Cam and Joe finally get some validation for their climb out of the program’s low point just three years ago. The two were both emotional, but reminded the fans and media that there was still work to be done. There was still a full tournament to play, and one more game in the regular season.

The only damper on the evening was the loss of Nick Harris. Charleston’s starting center came up limping just 9 minutes into the game and returned to the bench with crutches and a walking boot. If Harris is a no-go for the CAA Tournament, Charleston’s chances of winning it all go down significantly. Nick is the team’s best interior defender and a capable rebounder. For a team that prides itself on those two principles, that’s a tough loss.

Williamsburg has been a tough place to play since the Cougars entered the CAA. Charleston had an 0–4 record at Kaplan Arena going into Saturday’s game, and based on the variety of factors at hand (W&M senior night, CofC with nothing to play for, Harris being out), I was not confident in the Cougars running their win streak to 12.

The game started about as I expected. The Tribe were revved up by a rowdy home court, and the Cougars kind of ran through the motions like a team that had already mentally checked out.

Interestingly, but not unexpected, Coach Grant decided to fully commit to playing small ball. Jaylen McManus was back in the starting lineup, and neither Samba Ndiaye or Osi Smart ever left the bench. In a vacuum, the moves makes sense. McManus has proven to be the most capable of the reserves, and the offense keeps humming with either he or Pointer sharing the court with Chealey-Riller-Johnson-Brantley. But Charleston can’t have Brantley play center for extended minutes against every team. Experimenting with Smart/Ndiaye and getting them reps before the tournament may have been the better long term solution, but we’ll never know for sure.

The Cougars fell down by double digits midway through the first period, and seemed a step slow defensively. The Tribe scored 44 points in the half, including 18 in the paint and 21 from behind the arc. Riller (continuing his offensive assault on W&M this season) and Johnson paced the Cougars early, while Chealey had just 2 points and 2 turnovers.

Charleston found themselves down as many as 16 points in the second half before they flipped the switch. We’ve seen them get to that different gear before, and they were able to do it again over the last 10 minutes of this game. There was very little defense played in this game, from either team, but Charleston started beating W&M at its own game to cut into the lead each possession. Earl Grant remarked how the last 8–10 minutes of the game is how the Cougars have to play the entire contest.

Riller, Johnson and Chealey were all drilling shots while Brantley bullied his way under the basket to match the two’s and free throws that W&M was getting the other way. Defensively, Charleston was forcing the Tribe to work for everything. The Cougs even deployed a little full court pressure and nabbed some steals. We could talk about the specifics of that stretch — like Chealey’s personal 11–0 run — but what you really want to see again is the last shot of regulation.

Down three, with 3.5 seconds to play and the length of the court in front of them, Grant Riller continued his late game heroics and hit yet another dagger. Just look at the air getting sucked out of this building.

Riller’s shot is what everyone will remember from this game, but the final two minutes of the game were a master class in coaching. Fans can bemoan the constant fouling at the end of a game, but in rare instances like this, everything worked to perfection for CofC. No turnovers, missed free throws or miscues from the Tribe, just three points to Charleston for every two points that the Tribe scored. Props to the coaching staff for squeezing every second out of the game, and the players for hitting the shots.

The game went to overtime, but Charleston could not keep the momentum going. Jarell Brantley quickly fouled out, followed by Nathan Knight, and the Cougars were forced to play McManus and Evan Bailey at center. William & Mary scored a whopping 21 points in the five extra minutes and Charleston could not keep pace. It was Charleston’s first time surpassing the 100 point threshold in nine years.

But 116 points is still waaaay too many points to give up for an Earl Grant-coached team. I almost don’t even want to know how much of that is because of Harris being out, and how much was just playing to W&M’s gameplan.

Whatever the reason for the breakdowns defensively, the Cougars will have a full week to prepare in advance of the CAA Tournament. Time for CofC to finish what they started, and cut down the nets one more time.