Coastal Carolina Visits Charleston in Lowcountry Rematch

CCU guard Anthony Raffa is averaging 20.9 points per game

College of Charleston (6-4, 1-0)
Coastal Carolina (4-5, 0-0)
TD Arena
Tipoff at 12pm on ESPN3

With one more game standing between them and winter break, the CofC Cougars host formative in-state rival Coastal Carolina inside TD Arena. The contest between these two last year was billed as an unofficial state championship in Conway as both teams had dispatched the rest of SC's college hoops programs. Antwaine Wiggins and Andrew Lawrence both showed out in that tiny little gym for a CofC victory. This time around the Cougars will have home court advantage but high-scoring Anthony Raffa and the Chanticleers are coming off an impressive thrashing of Clemson.

Coastal's main strength is their guard play. For much of this early season, Raffa was the nation's leading scorer in all of Division 1 basketball. He has since cooled slightly to just over 20 points per game, good for 10th in the country. Sharing the backcourt with Raffa are senior Kierre Greenwood and sophomore Warren Gillis. Both supplement Raffa's abilities by being double digit scorers themselves and both are exceptional three point shooters. The biggest challenge this presents for the Cougars is that CCU runs a lot of ball screens on the perimeter to get these guys open. Coach Wojcik already mentioned in this weeks podcast how that will challenge the Cougs because defending that sort of motion demands that one of your bigs moves out to the perimeter to defend.

Inside the paint, the Chants have two big men whose names appear to have been misspelled as my cat walked across the keyboard: Uros Ljeskovic and El Hadji Ndieguene. Neither of them are really scorers, but Ndgieguene and reserve forward Michel Enanga are two of the better rebounders in the Big South.

In some ways this is a pretty favorable matchup for the Cougars. Coastal has been much worse on the road, losing all three of their games (Ole Miss, Tenn Tech and Boston University) by an average of 16 points. The Chants offense excels against zone defense because of their shooting talent but the Cougars have been very solid with their man defense under Wojcik this year. Thirdly, there isn't anyone on the CCU roster who can match up against Adjehi Baru inside.

The keys to coming out on top for the Cougars will be limiting the effectiveness of Coastal's guards and not turning the ball over. Stitt seems like the most likely defensive foil for Raffa based on size, but I wouldn't be surprised if Lawrence (who has a bulkier frame) or even AT (length) is picked to be the stopper. The Cougars seemed to have a mini-breakthrough on Tuesday when they were much more careful with the ball. Saturday's game will determine if that was merely a flash in the pan or a sign of things to come. Go Cougars!