CLINTON, S.C. - The Presbyterian College men's team basketball dropped a 64-46 decision to league-leading Coastal Carolina on Thursday night at the Templeton Center. Chase Holmes scored nine second-half points to lead the Blue Hose with 14 points.

"At halftime it felt like we had them right where we wanted them, head coach Gregg Nibert said.  "Unfortunately tonight they showed how good of a shooting team they are from the outside. Our game plan tonight was to make them shoot from the perimeter and in the end that was the difference."   

The Blue Hose (3-19, 1-9 BSC) came out of the blocks shooting just 11 percent from the field as Coastal Carolina (19-3, 9-1 BSC) took a 7-2 through the game's first 12 minutes. A basket from Chase Holmes at the 11:46 mark cut the Chanticleers' lead to just three points.

Over the next seven minutes, Coastal strung the lead out to 12 points at 5:51, but a run of seven straight points thanks to a pair of treys from Jake Troyli and Walt Allen helped reel the margin back to four points at the 2:59 mark.

Coming down the stretch in the first half, the Chanticleers rattled off six unanswered points before Holmes dropped in a buzzer beating lay-up to make the halftime score, 27-19.  Holmes led PC at the break with six points in the first 20 minutes.

Out of the intermission, PC was unable to make sustainable cuts into the Coastal advantage. A basket out of the break cut it to five, but Coastal would extend the lead to 13 points, its largest margin to that point, with 11:21 remaining.

Coastal turned up the heat inside the 10-minute mark with hot shooting from beyond the arc. The Chanticleers drained four baskets from downtown in just over four minutes to go up by 21 points at 7:10.  Overall, CCU shot 63 percent from downtown to set a new season high.

Troyli added nine points to go with his seven rebounds to take top honors on the glass for PC. Khalid Mutakabbir also finished the game with nine points.

The Blue Hose closed the evening with a 39 percent shooting performance from the field to go along with an 18 percent clip (3-of-17) from beyond the arc.  Both teams recorded 32 rebounds while PC committed 14 turnovers to Coastal's nine.

The Blue Hose return to the hardwood on Saturday night to take on the Charleston Southern Buccaneers.  The game is slated to begin at 7:30 p.m. and will make up the tail-end of a PC basketball doubleheader.  The Blue Hose women's basketball team opens the double-dip at 5 p.m. also against Charleston Southern. 

Coaches vs. Cancer is a program formed in part by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. PC's basketball coaches (and numerous other coaches across the country) will be choosing to acknowledge this special weekend by wearing sneakers with their suits while coaching the games that will fall Jan. 29-31.  Not only does this create awareness for the American Cancer Society's research  and it's effortless work to help those with this dreaded disease,  but it often lets the coaches themselves shed light on their own experiences with the disease (personal or through friends and family members).