Box Score Box Score
HIGH POINT, NC--Winthrop went scoreless over the final five minutes while High Point closed out the game with a 10-0 run as the Eagles fell to the Panthers 64-54 at the Millis Center on Thursday night.
Winthrop and High Point are both 3-3 in Big South Conference play while the Eagles drop to 6-11 overall and HPU improves to 7-9. The Eagles have now lost five straight times in the Millis Center, but still lead the all-time series 24-7.
In a game that featured two of the top three scorers in the conference in Winthrop's
Andre Jones and High Point's Nick Barbour, it was Shay Shine and Corey Law that were the shinning stars. Shine led all scorers in the game with 16 points and gave a defensive effort that limited Jones to a season-low 8 points and ended his double figure scoring streak at 18 games. Law got High Point off to a strong early start and then came up with a big rebound dunk that regained the lead for the Panthers at 56-54 with 3:20 left in the game.
Winthrop led 28-27 at halftime as it held Barbour to just two points. The 6-3 senior finished with seven, but it was his back-to-back buckets in the second half along with two 3-pointers each by Shine and Branimir Mikulic that gave High Point a 53-43 lead with 7:58 left in the contest. But just when it looked like the Panthers were ready to win going away, Winthrop came firing back from long distance to outscore HPU 11-1 over the next 3:35 to knot the score at 54-54 with 5:23 on the clock. Winthrop then couldn't buy a basket for the remainder of the game as the Eagles missed their last eight shots. After Law's dunk off a missed shot put High Point up by two, the Panthers closed out the game by connecting on eight of nine free throws for the final 10-point margin.
For Winthrop's Jones it was a night to forget as he connected on just 2 of 13 field goals and went 1 for 6 from 3-point land. As a team Winthrop finished the night shooting 37 percent (20-54) and was 30 percent from behind the arc (6-20). High Point came into the game ranked 18th nationally in 3-point field goal percentage and showed why as it connected on 50 percent (8-16). The big difference was at the free throw line where HPU converted 16 of 23 compared to Winthrop's 8-16. With Law leading all rebounders in the game with 8, the Panthers also won the rebounding war by a convincing 36-25 margin. Valentine led the Eagles with 7.
Reggie Middleton scored 15 points to lead the Eagles while Valentine finished with 13. Mikulic joined Shine and Law in double figures for High Point as he finished with 11.
Winthrop will travel on to Lynchburg, VA where it will face Liberty at 7 p.m. Saturday in a game that will be broadcast by MASN and ESPN3. The Winthrop radio broadcast can be heard on FM 94.3 beginning at 6:30 with the pre-game show.
