Photo Courtesy: UNCW Athletics
 
WILMINGTON, N.C. – Grant Riller and Jarrell Brantley combined for 51 points as the College of Charleston rolled to its 10th-straight win in an 88-74 rout of UNCW on Saturday night at Trask Coliseum.
 
The preseason Colonial Athletic Association favorite Cougars (22-6, 13-3 CAA) claimed their first-ever regular-season series sweep of the defending champion Seahawks (9-19, 6-10 CAA), who defeated CofC in  last year's conference tournament championship game.
 
Riller finished the night with a team-high 28 points on 11-of-14 shooting from the field including three treys. Brantley scored 23 points including the team's first 11 of the game and 4-for-4 from beyond the arc.
 
CofC led 39-33 at halftime and shot a season-best 68.0 percent from the floor (34-of-50). Joe Chealey and Cameron Johnson added 15 and 10 points respectively.
 
Riller hit a pair of 3-pointers during a tiebreaking 17-5 run that gave the Cougars a 74-62 lead with five minutes left in regulation. Charleston remains unbeaten in the month of February and boast the third-longest win streak in the nation.
 
UNCW was held to 18.2 percent from long range (4-of-22), but were led by a game-high 29-point and 17-rebound double-double from Devontae Cacok.
 
The Cougars return home to host Elon (14-14, 6-9 CAA) on Senior Night in the team's regular-season home finale on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. (ET) at TD Arena. Tickets are still available for purchase by calling (843) 953-COFC or online at: www.CofCSports.com/tickets
 
POSTGAME NOTES
• For the 16-straight game in league play, the College of Charleston used the starting lineup of Joe Chealey, Grant Riller, Cameron Johnson, Jarrell Brantley and Nick Harris.
• With the win, College of Charleston tied the all-time series with UNCW with 13 victories each. The Cougars swept the regular-season series with the Seahawks for the first time since joining the CAA in July of 2013.
• Grant Riller extended his double-digit scoring streak to six-straight games with a team-high 28 points in 38 minutes of action at UNCW. He has now scored 20-or-more points in four of the last five games for the Cougars. Riller has now tabulated 935 career points to date.
• Jarrell Brantley registered 23 points on a career-best tying 4-for-4 shooting performance at UNCW. It marked his 15th 20-point game of his career and eighth of the season. He also added a team-high seven rebounds, three assists and one steal in just 27 minutes of play versus the Seahawks. Brantley has now recorded 1,179 career points to date.
• Joe Chealey turned in 15 points and three assists at UNCW. He has now recorded his third 100+ assist season (102) and has tabulated 1,709 career points to date.
• Nick Harris made five rebounds and one blocked shot at UNCW. He became only the seventh all-time CofC player to record 500 points, 500 rebounds and 100 blocks in a career. Harris currently ranks seventh all-time in career blocks (100) in the program's NCAA Division I era.
• CofC shot a season-best 68.0 percent from the field (34-of-50) versus the Seahawks including 70.8 percent in the second half (17-of-24).
• The Cougar defense held UNCW to the second-lowest opponent accuracy from beyond the arc this season (18.2%).
• College of Charleston has now scored 80+ points in its last five-straight games. The Cougars' 88 points at UNCW marked its fourth-highest output of the season behind Delaware (93), North Greenville (92) and Drexel (89).
 
POSTGAME QUOTES
College of Charleston Head Coach Earl Grant
On the game …
"I thought our guys showed great poise in a hostile environment tonight. Certainly it was loud and the crowd was very involved. We were able to execute under all of that pressure and noise. We were also able to defend at a high level. Wilmington is very capable of scoring a lot of points. I thought we did a really good job of limiting their transition baskets. That was a big key to the game."
 
On what the team was doing other than its defense to be successful …
"We were sharing the ball. Earlier we weren't sharing the ball as much. We had eight turnovers in the first 12 minutes of the game. I thought we were driving it, but not a lot of movement and a lot of standing. But as we got into the game and settled down, we started executing better. We were running a lot of set plays for different people. We did a really good job of being poised and executing with pace. We are acting like a team that can run good offense. We have been trying to strive for that and it's starting to come together."