STATESBORO, GA— Keon Johnson scored 30 points to lead Winthrop to an 88-81 victory at Georgia Southern, Saturday afternoon at Hanner Fieldhouse in men's basketball non-conference action.
The victory ends a two-game skid for Winthrop as it improves to 7-3 on the year while Georgia Southern drops its third straight and is now 3-6 on the year. The game ends a stretch of six games out of seven on the road for Winthrop as it returns home for its next contest on Tuesday, Dec. 22 at noon to take on Alabama State.
Winthrop led 56-54 with 12:25 to play in the game when Johnson went off for 10 straight points to put the Eagles up 66-59 with eight and a half left. After GSU had cut the Winthrop lead to five points with 7:47 to play Johnson made a play, but this time he drove and kicked the ball out to
Jimmy Gavin, who buried a three. GSU answered right back with a jumper by Tookie Brown, but then
Bjorn Broman drained a three for a nine-point lead and the Eagles stretched it to 13 points with 3:26 to play.
Brown scored with 49 seconds left in the game to cut Winthrop's lead to six points, but the Eagles finished the game off by knocking down their final six free throws in the final minute to seal the victory. Winthrop finished the game 20-for-21 from the foul line.
GSU started the second half with a quick 6-0 run, but Winthrop quickly reversed the momentum in its favor and scored the next seven points for a 43-42 lead after a jumper by Johnson with 17:09 remaining in the game. Winthrop did not trail the rest of the game as the game was tied twice (16:26/9:56). The second time the game was tied in the second half, was in the middle of Johnson's stretch of 10 straight points with seven of them coming after GSU tied the game at 59-59.
Johnson finished the game 9-for-14 from the field and finished with a career-best six triples (6-for-9) while going 6-for-6 at the foul line. He's now made 19 straight at the charity stripe. He was joined in double-figures by Gavin with 20 points on 6-for-12 shooting and
Xavier Cooks with 13 points and 11 rebounds for his fourth career double-double.
Winthrop finished the game shooting 45 percent from the field (51 percent in the second half) and was 12-for-27 from three. GSU shot 36 percent from the field but did hit 11 threes in the game and crashed the boards for 22 offensive rebounds that led to a 24 second chance points.
Brown led GSU in scoring with 25 points while Ike Smith and Devince Boykins each had 13.
The game was tied 36 all at the half as Winthrop shot 40 percent from the field (6-for-16 behind the arc) and Georgia Southern shot 36 percent (6-for-17 behind the arc). Each team had a look in the final 11 seconds of the half to take the lead, but couldn't get their respective shot to fall.
GSU jumped out to a 15-7 lead early in the first half as it opened up the game hitting five of its first 10 shots. Winthrop responded with a 14-3 run that was capped off by back-to-back threes from Gavin and Johnson to take a 21-18 lead with 11:44 to play in the half. GSU's Jake Allsmiller hit a three to tie the game at 21-21 and for the remainder of the half the game went back-and-forth as the game was tied seven times and there were three lead changes.
Johnson became the first Winthrop player two score 30 or more points in a game twice in the same season since Torrell Martin did so in the 2006-07 season.
