Box Score
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ROCK HILL, SC— Winthrop placed four players in double-figures including 39 points from the bench as it defeated Brevard College, 77-54 Tuesday evening at the Winthrop Coliseum.

Winthrop captured its third win of the season and is now 3-4 on the year while Brevard College falls to 1-6.

Gideon Gamble and Shola Diop both came off the bench to lead Winthrop in scoring with 13 points each. The 13 points is a career-high for Diop, who also snagged a career-high eight rebounds as he finished the game 5-for-9 from the field and 3-for-3 at the foul line.

“I told our guys in the locker room afterwards I was really, really proud of coaching an extremely unselfish team today,” said Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey. “I don't think we have one selfish guy in that entire locker room. I think they really shared the ball and played together.”

Larry Brown and Derrick Henry helped spark a 10-2 run to start the second half to give the Eagles their first double-figures lead of the game. The run started as Brown fed Henry down court for an easy two and Henry responded with a three-pointer. Brown then followed a James Bourne shot, reached out and flipped the ball back up off the glass and in.

The work rate didn't slow down for the Eagles as they continued to work hard defensively and attack the basket on offense and pushed the lead to 55-36 with just under 11 minutes to play. Christian Farmer blocked a shot by Miles Leathers, but Leathers boarded the miss and drove to the basket only to be called for a foul as Reggie King drew the charge with 9:13 left. It was the kind of energy the team showed the entire second half.  

Winthrop came out sluggish as Brevard jumped to an early 13-4 lead with five of the points come from Manzey Miller. Winthrop shot just 2-for-12 from the field during that stretch before Shola Diop scored to get the Eagles going in the right direction. The Eagles used a 12-4 run to pull within a point at 17-16 with 11:40 to play on a three-point play by Gamble.

The first lead of the game for the Eagles came just moments after Gamble's three-point play as it jumped ahead 23-22 with eight and a half minutes to play in the first half after a dunk by Gamble off a nice feed from Joab Jerome. Brevard came right back to take the lead, but the Eagles grabbed the lead for the remainder of the half when Larry Brown stole the ball and went the length of the court for a lay-in. The lead went to four points after a turnover on the ensuing possession led to a three-pointer by Christian Farmer for a 30-26 lead.

The Eagles led 35-31 at the break thanks to a Henry triple from straight away as time expired. Both teams shot 40 percent from the field, but the Tornados used the foul line to keep the game close (7-for-12). Winthrop used a balanced attack in the first half as its top two scorers, Henry and Andre Smith, combined for just five points (all five from Henry).

The Tornados were led by Gerel Simmons in scoring as he had a game-high 18 points while Manzey Miller had 11 and Dominique Pickett added 10.

“Brevard, give them credit as they have a tough system to defend with the Princeton system but they're not the biggest, strongest team in the world so we wanted to try and impose our will physically by throwing the ball inside and I thought our big guys rewarded themselves by demanding the ball and then finishing once they caught it,” added Kelsey.

Winthrop did just that as the team finished with 34 points in the paint and received 27 points from its post players. In addition to Diop's 12 points, Brown added a career-high eight points while Bourne finished with six.

Winthrop shot 62 percent from the floor in the second half to finish at 49 percent for the game while the Eagles held Brevard to 29 percent shooting in the second half and 35 percent for the game.

Jerome finished with 12 points, six rebounds and four assists while Henry chipped in with 12 points. Farmer added 11 points off the bench. One prime example of the unselfish play Kelsey harped on was Smith, who didn't score a point, but only took three shots after coming off a career-high 26 points in which he attempted 13 shots. Smith did finish with three assists, two rebounds and two steals.

Winthrop will have the next 10 days off before getting back on the court against Ohio University on Saturday, Dec. 15 at 2 p.m. in Athens, OH.