Marietta, Ga. – The College of Coastal Georgia men's basketball team will play in the Southern States Athletic Conference tournament, after all.
In a must-win game Thursday night at Southern Polytechnic in the season finale, the Mariners pulled out a 61-60 victory over the Hornets to earn a spot in next week's league tournament in Montgomery, Ala.
Freshman guard Jevan Billinger made a wide-open 3-point shot with 18 seconds left that put the Mariners back on top in a game they led most of the way before falling behind late and almost seeing their chance to qualify for the conference tournament slip away, too.
But even after Billinger made the basket, the Mariners had to have a defensive stop to seal the victory which they got.
"The guys knew what the game meant, and we played pretty well other than that one stretch late," said longtime coach Coastal Georgia coach Gerald Cox, who will take the Mariners to the SSAC tournament for the first time in their first season in the league. "The only way you learn to handle those situations is by being in them and overcoming them, and we got through it tonight."
Coastal Georgia (7-22 overall, 5-13 league) is tied for fourth in the loss column as of today with both Southern Poly (14-15, 4-13) and Truett-McConnell (6-22, 4-13) in the SSAC East. But the Mariners are assured of a berth in the league tournament with Southern Poly and Truett-McConnell set to square off Saturday in a game that will decide which one of them also earns a berth into next week's tournament.
Because the Mariners will lose a tiebreaker against either team for the fourth spot, the Mariners will be the fifth seed from the East for the league tournament with the winner between the Hornets and Bears going in as the fourth seed.
The top five teams from both the East and West divisions make the conference postseason tournament.
The Mariners will play the No. 4 seed from the West in a play-in game next Wednesday with the winner moving on to the tournament proper which opens on Thursday. The seeding will shake out in the West this weekend based on the results of the final regular-season games.
The Mariners put themselves in the win-or-go home position they faced entering Thursday night's game because of their home loss seven days earlier against Brewton-Parker which was officially eliminated from contention for the conference tournament with its loss Thursday to Southern Wesleyan.
Coastal Georgia led the Hornets for all but one brief stretch in the first half before taking a 32-26 lead into halftime.
The Mariners continued to lead throughout the second half until the Hornets took a late lead after gradually chipping away at the 55-46 deficit they faced when P.J. Reason, who led Coastal Georgia in scoring with 16 points, scored on a second-chance basket for the Mariners with 8:01 to go.
Using pressure defense that rattled the Mariners, the Hornets came back to take their first lead since early in the opening half on a basket by Cortez Irby that put them ahead 56-55 with 5:42 to go.
Both teams would not score for almost the next three minutes until Irby, who scored 14 points for Southern Poly, connected again for a 58-55 lead for the Hornets with 2:51 to go.
Junior forward Kentorey Johnson hit a three-pointer for the Mariners with 2:12 to go to tie the game 58-58. Johnson finished with 13 points and 12 rebounds in the win.
The Hornets, who were led by the 15 points of CJ McElrath, would go up again on the Mariners by making one of two foul shots on two different possessions for a 60-58 lead with 36 seconds left.
After the Mariners called a timeout to set up a play, sophomore point guard Reggie Burke found Billinger open in the corner and the Coastal Georgia freshman drained the long ball that gave him 11 points for the game and ultimately sent the Mariners to the victory.
"The guys could tell it was good when it left his hands," Cox said. "I knew it looked good when it was about halfway there."
The Mariners don't necessarily want to be in a spot where fifth-place in the division looks good at the end in future seasons.
But considering what the alternative could have been with a different result, it looked good on Thursday night.
"We're playing again," Cox said.
