ROCK HILL, SC— Winthrop looks for its third straight win as it heads down to Conway, SC on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. to take on Coastal Carolina in The HTC Center.
Winthrop is coming off back-to-back wins over Liberty and Campbell as it is now 10-9 overall and 5-3 in the league while Coastal Carolina enters the game at 15-5 overall and 6-2 in the Big South. This will be the 79
th meeting all-time between the two schools as Coastal holds a 40-38 lead in the series. The Eagles swept the regular season series in 2013-14 before falling to the Chanticleers in the Big South title game. Fans can listen to Dave Friedman with the play-by-play on 104.1 The Bridge or watch on the Big South Network.
This game marks the midway point in Big South play as the Eagles look to make the turn with six wins in the league, but will have to go through a tough defensive Coastal Carolina team.
While Winthrop is second in the league in scoring (45
th nationally), the Chanticleers are first in the league in scoring defense allowing just 59.4 points per game (29
th nationally). Since league play began the Chanticleers are third best defensively at 67.8 ppg. Coastal also features one of the top rebounding teams in the Big South as it leads the league in rebound margin at +8.4, which is the 14
th best margin in the country.
During league play the Eagles are 5
th in scoring defense but have made it difficult on teams to score as they are second in field goal percentage defense and second in three-point field goal percentage defense through eight games.
The Eagles have held leads of 12 points or more in five of their eight league games and have led after 20 minutes in half of those. Winthrop is headed to Coastal Carolina where it hasn't led a game at the half against the host Chanticleers since Feb. 6, 2008 when it fell 50-49 after leading 27-19 at the break.
Senior
Andre Smith provided his best game in a Big South contest in the win over Campbell as he scored 18 of his 23 points in the second half to lead the Eagles from behind. He now has five double-figures games in league play and is working his way to becoming the 21
st player in school history to score 1,000 points as he currently has 913 and needs to average 7.9 the rest of the season to make that happen. He's third on the team in scoring and in five games at The HTC Center last season he shot 50 percent from the floor and 53 percent from three.
Leading the team in scoring and ranked fifth in the Big South is
Keon Moore at 17.8 ppg. The senior guard is coming off 18 points in the win over Campbell. Sophomore
Keon Johnson hit double-figures in the win over Campbell for the fifth straight game and is second on the team in scoring at 11.9 per game and has averaged 17.3 per game over the last four games.
Coastal Carolina opened up league play with five straight wins before losing two of its last three games. At The HTC Center the Chanticleers are 8-1 overall and 3-1 in league play this season. Since The HTC Center opened for play in 2012, Coastal is 35-10 at home.
Like the Eagles, Coastal has a trio of players averaging double-figures led by Josh Cameron's 13.7 ppg. The senior guard is coming off a team-high 16 points in the win over Presbyterian College and is averaging nearly the same in league games at 13.6. He's the top three-point threat averaging 2.25 threes per game, which ranks 10
th in the league.
Senior guard Warren Gillis is averaging a team-best 14.3 ppg in league play and shooting 46 percent from the field. Gillis was just 3-for-10 from the field in the win over PC but had 11 points, five rebounds, and two assists. In three meetings with the Eagles in 2013-14, Gillis averaged 22 points while shooting 55 percent from the floor, 50 percent from three (3-for-6) and 87 percent from the charity stripe (27-for-31).
The third player averaging double-figures is Shivaughn Wiggins at 11.4 per game as the redshirt sophomore transfer from Mt. St. Mary's is shooting 43 percent from the floor and leads the team in assists with 74 (3.7 per game). He's averaged the same amount of points during league play but has increased his assists to 4.5 per game.
So far at home this season the Chanticleers have averaged 72.3 ppg while allowing 69.5. Winthrop has averaged 68.2 ppg on the road this season and 69.0 during league play. The overall defensive scoring average on the road this season has been 70.1 but the Eagles are holding teams on the road to just 61.5 ppg and 40 percent shooting (25 percent from three).
