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ROCK HILL, SC— The Winthrop men's basketball team heads to Coastal Carolina for its final road test of the season as it takes on its Big South Conference foe Wednesday night at 7 p.m.

After a brief break in league play, the Eagles are back in Big South play as they close out the regular season this week beginning with a road game at Coastal Carolina.

Winthrop won its Ramada Worldwide BracketBusters over Southeastern Louisiana, 66-52, and are now 4-4 all-time in the BracketBuster match-ups.

It was a complete team victory as five players scored in double-figures and defensively held the Lions to 29 percent shooting in the second half and held them to just 52 points. It was the fewest amount of points the Eagles had allowed in its BracketBusters history.

Junior Joab Jerome has seemed to have stepped into the role vacated by the Derrick Henry injury as he led the team in scoring in the last two contests included a 14-point performance in the win on Saturday. Jerome went to the foul line a career-best 17 times and connected on 12 of them, also a career-high. Over the last five games he's averaging 14.8 points, 4.4 rebounds while shooting 59 percent from the floor. He's also 34-for-43 from the foul line in that span (79 percent).

Over the last five games, sophomore Andre Smith and redshirt senior Gideon Gamble have also averaged in double-figures. Smith is scoring 10.4 points per game over the span and shooting 50 percent from three (12-for-24). Gamble is averaging 10 points, 4.4 rebounds and shooting 44 percent from the field.

Smith had 12 points in the win on Saturday and Gamble had 13 points and four assists.

Winthrop has two games remaining in the league and is currently one game out of last place in the South Division ahead of Presbyterian College. Winthrop is three games back of Coastal Carolina, so unable to catch its opponent tonight in the standings. Coastal Carolina is chasing a possible second place finish in the South Division.

Winthrop is coming off a victory, but has lost two straight in league play since defeating Charleston Southern at home on Feb. 13.

The Eagles and Chanticleers meet for the 75th time tonight. The all-time series favors Coastal Carolina 38-36, but the Eagles won the last meeting in Rock Hill on Jan. 30, 61-48, and has won two straight over Coastal. This will be the Eagles first trip to the HTC Center, the site of the 2013 VisitMyrtleBeach.com Basketball Championships.

Coastal is 13-13 on the year and 8-6 in the league and is 4-3 since losing to Winthrop in the first meeting.

The Chanticleers are an impressive 11-3 at home and 6-1 in the league with the only league loss at the HTC Center to Gardner-Webb on Feb. 16.

On Saturday, the Chanticleers lost their road BracketBusters game, 80-70 to Western Carolina.

Senior Anthony Raffa continues to lead the way for Coastal, having led the team in scoring 17 times this season and posting a team-best 18.8 scoring average (2nd in the Big South). In the first meeting, Raffa scored 16 points on 6-for-14 shooting, but had just two points in the second half. He's been very tough to guard at home as he's averaging 19.4 points in seven home league games and shooting 47 percent from the field and 48 percent behind the arc.

Senior Kierre Greenwood is second on the team at 12.8 points per game and is 5th in the Big South with a 4.2 assists average.
Like the Eagles, Coastal is a strong defensive team and is ranked third in the league allowing 62.8 points per game. Winthrop is second at 61.1 points per game.

In the last two meetings, Winthrop has won by holding Coastal to under 60 points.