The Coastal Carolina men's basketball team won its 19th straight game beating the Liberty Flames 77-71 in Conway on Thursday night. The Chanticleers win streak ties Winthrop for the all-time Big South Conference record. The Chants streak is the second longest in men's division one basketball behind #1 Ohio State, winners of 23 straight.

Coastal Carolina had a 19 point lead with just over five minutes to play, but Liberty closed the gap. The Chants hit only 16 of 32 free throws on the night but held on to improve to 12-0 in Big South Conference play giving them a two game lead on Liberty in the standings. Coastal now has a record of 21-2.

Anthony Raffa with 19 points, led five CCU players in double figures. Desmond Holloway scored 16, Danny Nieman and Chad Gray had a dozen and Kierre Greenwood finished with ten points.

Coastal Carolina will host VMI this Saturday at 4:30 p.m. in Conway. CCU is 10-0 at home this season.

POST GAME ANALYSIS from WPDE SPORTS DIRECTOR RICH CHRAMPANIS who was at the game

When Kierre Greenwood had a rare slam, CCU was heading towards a blowout win over Liberty.  The Greenwood slam made it 65-46, but from there the Chants could not close out the Flames thanks in large part to shooting 16 of 32 from the free throw line.  In my opinion, this could be a blessing in disguise.  CCU hasn't been challenged much in conference play and if they pasted the Flames, it would have been real easy to think that the NCAA Tournament was in the bag.  Give credit to Liberty, they have proved on two occasions that they will be a tough out.   Talking with Danny Nieman, he pointed out that the Flames do a lot of matchup zone.  It is very hard to prepare for a team that employs this tactic and is a big reason why Liberty is the no doubt #2 team in the league. 

RAFFA's TRICKERY

It may have been tough to see if you were at the game, but Anthony Raffa used an old playground trick for two of his 19 points.  During an inbounds pass, Raffa threw the ball off the rear end of Liberty's Joel Vander Pol and saw it bounce right back to him and he calmly laid it in off the glass.  Watch the video above to see the play. 

THE STREAK

Phil Kornblut from Columbia sports radio was down at the game and pointed out to Cliff Ellis that the current 19 game win streak is his longest as a coach.  Ellis recalled 17 straight wins to start a season during his tenure at Clemson and 17 was the longest run he had at Auburn.  What was more interesting was the observation from Ellis that this one is the hardest streak to get. 

"At Auburn and Clemson you can get more home games.  You didn't have as many road games during those times because people will come to you with guarantee games.  We have to go play guarantee games.  This 19 game streak is probably a little harder earned, because of so many more road games."

A guarantee game is when a high profile program pays a smaller school a nice stipend to come to their arena.  The guarantee is the amount of money to the road opponent and it usually guaranteed a win for the home team.  CCU's win at LSU not only was impressive for the resume, but it also netted the Chanticleers a nice paycheck.  That's right -- LSU paid Coastal and got a loss.  That's a bad night right there. 

QUOTABLE

"They're a really, really good team.  I don't expect them to lose.  Maybe they'll lose in the championship game like they did last year, but I kind of think they are much more experienced, poised, their roles are really good....they are really well coached.  They are going to be very hard to beat here."  Liberty coach Dale Layer after the game.