Big South Tournament: The Ghosts Of Tony Dunkin And Brian Penny

Coastal Carolina, a small school of 8,000 students less than 10 miles west of Myrtle Beach, is trying to do something over the next three days that it hasn’t done in 17 years. Qualify its basketball team for the NCAA Tournament. This is just the third winning season for Coastal since then, so it’s been some lean times in between tournament bids. But the Chanticleers made up for lost time with a magical run this season, setting a school record 27 wins en route to the Big South regular season title. Despite that, if this team wants to be considered the greatest Coastal team in history it has to at least match the feats of those teams in the early 1990s that played themselves into the NCAA Tournament.

I remember those Chanticleer heydays fondly. Led by a pair of explosive mid-major scorers, Coastal Carolina won the 1991 anf 1993 Big South Tournaments for their only two NCAA bids in school history. Former Chanticleers Briany Penny and Tony Dunkin are two rather obscure figures in the NCAA history books that I will never forget. Penny was a pure shooter with deep range. Dunkin was the more all-around player and his skills around the rim netted him the nickname ‘Slam” Dunkin. How good was he? He won Big South Player Of the Year all four years he was at Coastal, the only person in NCAA history to win four conference POY awards.

And, these guys scared the beejesus out of me years ago. That 1991 team matched up with Indiana in a 2/15 first round game. I was a freshmen at IU at the time and this was one of the late night tips on the first day of tournament. For the most part Indiana had their way with the Chants, opening up a double digit in the first half and up by as many as 15 points midway through the second half. Then Brian Penny happened. The dude got scorching hot. He ended up scoring 25 points in the second half alone, most of it in the final 10 minutes of the game. He drilled several treys during the run and on two different occassions brought the Chants to within a bucket in the closing minutes. My fellow Hoosier fans and I were pissing in our pants. The announcer seemed to be screaming ‘Penny For 3……Good!’ every minute and nobody was stopping him. Eventually, they just ran out of time and the Hoosiers hit enough free throws to secure the win. But, holy hell was it a close call. And, in all the basketball I’ve watched since, I still have not seen too many scoring displays, especially under those circumstances,  than what Brian Penny did that night. I’ll never forget him.

Two years later, the Chants again won the Big South. Penny had departed, but Dunkin was still on the team in his senior season. Sadly for them, they drew Michigan and the Fab Five in their sophomore years in a 1/16 game in the West Region. Unlike their near upset of IU, this game was never close and the Wolverines rolled to something like a 30-point victory. It was a bad way to go for Dunkin. Not only did his team get trucked, but he also had to suffer the ignoble fate of being mercilessly taunted by the Fab Fivers because of his cheesy nickname of Slam Dunkin. Well, at least that’s how Mitch Albom reported it in his book.  I guess we cant be totally sure he was there and got it right. Hey-O!

It’s been a long time since those days for Coastal Carolina. But, the Chants are on the verge of being relevant again on the national scene. Sure, they rolled to a surprise Big South regular season title, but unless they win tonight and on Saturday, nobody will remember their name. This is their and their Big South brethern’s national championship. And, for the Chants it couldnt set up better as they have home court advantage throughout by virtue of their regular season crown.

Coastal Carolina is also where Cliff Ellis, the one time Clemson and Auburn coach, now hangs out. He’s in his third year of guiding the program. Picked to finish in the bottom half of the league in the preseason, Ellis used a complete roster makeover heading into the season to engineer this impressive Year Three turnaround. The Chants lost four of their top six scorers from a 5-13 league team last year. But, he’s sprinkled four freshmen into his 9-man rotation, along with a high scoring forward who transferred after a couple of years at South Carolina and voila, you have a whole new team that took the Big South by storm, winning ten more league games than last season.

The Chants are led in scoring by a pair of undersized forwards who are perfect fits at this level of play. Joseph Harris, a senior and one of the few holdovers from last year, and Chad Gray, the South Carolina transfer who actually comes off the bench for Ellis’ crew, both score over 14 points per game. The other double digit scorer is senior guard Mario Edwards, who is the teams top three-point threat. Other than Edwards, this isnt much of a three-point outfit. They do their damage inside and six of their top seven guys shoot better than 52-percent on their two point shots. If anyone takes Coastal down in this sectional they will have to either get uber hot from behind the arc, something the Chants might not be able to keep up with, and/or clog the middle to find a way to thwart Coastal’s interior scoring. Of course, even if they do that, can any of the opposition overcome Coastal’s stifling defense and score enough points to beat them? The Chants are in the top-10 nationally in scoring defense, field goal percentage and three-point percentage. They’re also one of the best teams statistically at rebounding the basketball.

Tonight they face the fourth seed UNC Asheville Bulldogs in the sectional semifinals. Who do you got? The 10th ranked scoring D in the country or the 313th ranked scoring D. The Bulldogs havent stopped too many folks this year, and they may find it hard slowing down the Chants, who rank 15th in the nation shooting the ball and score 75 points a game. The Dogs are very perimeter driven. Their top weapon inside is their 6/10 center, but he often only logs 20 minutes a game due to foul trouble and general inefficiency. KenPom predicts a blowout, calling for a 17-point Chant win and giving them a 94-percent chance of winning the game. Back in early January, the Bulldogs played the Chants tough dropping a 1-point game. But, later in the season, on Coastal’s home floor where this game is being played tonight, the Chants woodshedded them with 98 points en route to a 36-point win.

The first semifinal of the sectional has Radford and Winthrop knocking heads. They’re a combined 25-11 in Big South play, so they expect to win.  Each has beaten the Chants this season, with Radford going a step further by beating Coastal on their home floor, the only team to do that this season. Winthrop has won this sectional several times this decade. Radford is the defending champ. Neither club will cede anything to Coastal, but to even get to that point they have to deal with each other first.

Radford’s team has a foreign flair to it with a player from Minsk and Belgrade in their starting lineup. They go 6/8, 6/10, 6/8 across their front line, making them the biggest team in the league. As a result, they can be a challenge to shoot against as their 34th in the nation field goal percentage defense attests to. Oh, and statisically speaking they are the best offensive rebounding team in the nation and they look to win games by scoring second chance points. The Russian Artsiom Parakhouski leads the nation pulling down 13.2 boards a game. Almost 40-percent of his boards come off the offensive glass.

As for Winthrop, they are like a shortstop from the golden age of baseball: All defense, no offense. They’re in the top-50 in the nation in several key defensive categories, like scoring D and FG percenmtage. On offense its a different story as they’re sub 300 in scoring, shooting and free throw shooting. They just struggle to score. They only have one guy–Reggie Middleton–who scores in double figures and he’s only barely past that threshold with a 10.2 mark. The one thing they do well on the offensive end is crash the boards, rakning 29th nationally in offensive rebounding. They’ll combat Radford’s frontline with their own trio up front that go 6/5, 6/9, 6/7. So we have a fascinating strength on strength matchup there. He who wins the second chance point stat takes this game? Could it be as simple as that?

Expect a nip and tuck contest. Both games, a Radford win each time,  this year between the teams were decided by two points. And, perhaps not so coincidentally, that’s exactly what KenPom projects, another game deicided by a single basket with Radford having a 57-percent of coming out on top.

Winner of this sectional is staring at a date with a top-10 team in the nation. Per the Bracket Matrix, the Chanticleers are the projected automatic bid, but they’re relegated to the 15th seed.  The Chants get 73 votes. Most have them on the 15 lines, but 14 have them onn the 14 line and 5 have them on the 16-line. One mock discounts the Chants regular season and project Radford to defend their Big South Sectional crown and getting into the field as a 16 seed.

The Radford/Winthrop game goes at 6:00 with the Coastal/UNC Asheville game tipping afterwards. Both games are broadcast on ESPNU. I couldnt find any lines for the games. Typically, the Big South games dont get spreads, but often times books will make exceptions once these smaller leagues begin the postseason. I know from experience the title game on Saturday will have a line. I think as we get closer to tip, you might see some books release lines for these two games tonight. So, we’re being patient shoppers. If we find something we like, you’ll be among the first to know. For now, enjoy the elimination games.

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