ROCK HILL, SC—Winthrop men's basketball is riding a three-game winning streak as it heads to Farmville, VA to take on Longwood University, Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m.
Winthrop enters the game at 13-10 on the year and 6-4 in the Big South as it looks to keep pace near the top of the conference standings in the South Division. Longwood is 7-18 overall and 2-8 in the league as it looks to end a four-game losing streak.
Coastal Carolina and UNC Asheville currently sit in first place in the South Division at 7-3 while the Eagles are tied with Gardner-Webb. Gardner-Webb plays Tuesday at Liberty while Coastal is at VMI on Wednesday and Asheville travels to Radford on Thursday. The Eagles haven't won four straight games since 2009-10 as they will try for the second time this season to make it four in a row.
These two teams met last season in Rock Hill as Longwood pulled off a 62-56 victory after shooting 61 percent from the floor in the second half. This is just the fourth meeting all-time against the Lancers as Winthrop is 1-2, having lost the last two meetings.
Winthrop won three games in a five-day span last week, which started with a win at Liberty on Tuesday and ended with a blowout win against Campbell on Saturday. The 28-point victory was the most against a Division I opponent in head coach
Pat Kelsey's short tenure with the Eagles.
The Eagles had a very balanced offensive attack last week as only one player in three games scored more than 13 points, which was senior
Joab Jerome in the win at Liberty. There were nine players that averaged 5.0 points or more last week as the Eagles averaged 84.3 points in the three games.
Jerome had a solid week at 13.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.1 assists while shooting 48 percent and going 18-for-24 at the foul line (75 percent). He currently averages 11.9 points per game, third on the team.
Freshman
Keon Johnson averaged 12.7 points per game last week and is now at a team-best 12.4 per game on the season. Johnson is closing in on some freshman records as he continues to enjoy an impressive first season as an Eagle. He is only six three-pointers from tying Tyson Watermen's mark of threes in a season (52) and his 12.4 scoring average is .1 shy of Waterman's freshman record of 12.5. He also has a chance to score more points than any freshman in the program's history as well setting a new mark in three-point field goal percentage and free throw percentage. Johnson has scored double-figures in six straight games.
Redshirt junior
Keon Moore failed to reach double-figures for the first time in six games as he finished with seven in the win over Campbell. Moore only shot six times making three with a three-point field goal to help the Eagles to a third straight win. Moore is second on the team with a 12.3 scoring average and heads to Longwood with the team's best average on the road in the Big South at 14.6.
Winthrop received several good efforts from its bench the last three games and junior
Brandon Vega is one of them. The point guard came off the bench to average 3.7 assists per game as he set a career-high with nine against Barber-Scotia. He also had four points at Liberty and five points against the Mighty Sabers. Freshman
Jarad Scott nearly recorded his first career double-double as he had a career-best nine points and 10 rebounds in the win over Barber-Scotia. He followed that with eight points against Campbell.
Longwood is led by four players averaging in double-figures with senior guard Tristan Carey leading the way at 19.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. Carey is one of the best scorers in the league that is 5
th in scoring in the Big South and leads the league with 3.38 threes per game (81 on the year). He shoots 44 percent from the floor, 42 percent from three and 76 percent at the line.
Sophomore Karl Ziegler is averaging 12.2 points per game to go along with 5.1 rebounds as he shoots 51 percent from the field. Redshirt junior Jeylani Dublin has come off the bench in all 25 games he's played to average 11.0 points and 4.5 rebounds while sophomore Lucas Woodhouse is the fourth Lancer averaging double-figures at 10.6.
Longwood is averaging 69.5 points per game in the Big South and allowing 79.0 points. In four home games the Lancers averaged 66 points while allowing 72.5.
Should that defensive average remain in Wednesday's matchup it could bode well for the Eagles, who are 16-2 in games under Kelsey when scoring 70 or more.
