ROCK HILL, SC—Winthrop men's basketball enters the final weekend of the 2013-14 season with a chance of finishing anywhere from first to fourth in the final standings of the South Division of the Big South Conference as it hosts Presbyterian College on Saturday, Mar. 1 at 4 p.m.
The Eagles are 16-12 and are tied for second place with the UNC Asheville at 9-6 in the league. Coastal Carolina and Gardner-Webb are tied for first as the Eagles can finish in a tie for first place but cannot earn the overall top seed in the division. The Eagles will recognize it's seniors during a pre-game ceremony.
Winthrop's win over Asheville on Wednesday guaranteed the team will finish the season with a winning record for the first time since 2009-10 when the team finished 19-14. The Eagles posted 107 points in the overtime victory, which was the first 100-point game against a Big South opponent since Feb. 4, 2009 when it lost 110-106 at home to VMI.
Winthrop had a few outstanding individual performances against Asheville as freshman
Keon Johnson scored a career-high 27 points as he was 5-for-6 from three, which included a three that made it a one possession game with 39 seconds left in regulation. Johnson also became Winthrop's freshman scoring leader, passing Winthrop Hall of Famer Tyson Waterman's mark he set in 1995-96.
Junior
Keon Moore hit the 20-point mark for the second straight game as he had 22, including the game-tying three with .4 seconds left in regulation. It was his sixth 20-point game of the season as he leads the team in scoring at 13.3 per game.
Jerome got the last minute rally started for the Eagles with his third three of the year as he's enjoyed a career season behind the arc at 32-for-65 (49 percent). He's shooting 52 percent behind the arc in league play. He had 17 points in the win and is now third on the team in scoring at 12.1.
Joining Johnson, Moore and Jerome in double-figures was junior
Andre Smith and freshman
Josh Davenport. Smith hit three triples and scored 17 points to go along with six assists. Davenport came off the bench to score 12 points and nab a career-high three steals.
Moore finished with three triples in the game and now has 50 on the year. Moore links himself in the Winthrop history books with Johnson and Smith as the first trio in school history to hit 50 or more threes in the same season.
Winthrop faces a Presbyterian College team that has lost three straight since capturing a win over Asheville on Feb. 15. The Blue Hose are 6-24 overall and 2-13 in the Big South.
Presbyterian College features one of the most dynamic players in the Big South in junior Jordan Downing. The 6-5 guard is averaging 19.4 points per game on the year and the exact same average in league play. He can score from anywhere on the floor as he leads the team with 71 threes (36 percent) and 92 made free throws (81 percent).
The Blue Hose also have one of the top scoring freshmen in the league in Reggie Dillard, who is averaging 12.1 points per game on the season and 11.5 in the Big South. Dillard shoots 44 percent from three and is 44-for-101 on the year.
Both of PC's wins in the league have come at home as it is 0-7 on the road so far.
This is a series that has been traditionally very close with the last six of the last seven meetings being decided by seven or fewer points and four of them by a single possession. This will be the 27
th meeting between Winthrop and PC as the Eagles hold a slight 14-12 advantage in the all-time series. Winthrop is 9-5 all-time against the Blue Hose in home games and 7-3 at the Winthrop Coliseum.
