CONWAY, SC— Winthrop men's basketball is headed back to the Big South Conference Tournament championship game for the 13
th time as it earned a 71-58 victory over Longwood, Saturday afternoon at The HTC Center.
Behind a balanced offense and strong defensive effort, the Eagles improved to 19-12 and will play in the Big South Championship game for the second straight season. Longwood finishes the season at 11-23 with the loss in the first Big South semifinal appearance.
The championship game will air on ESPN2 on Sunday, Mar. 8 at 12:30 p.m. as it will be rematch of last year's final against third-seeded Coastal Carolina. This will be the first time in Big South Tourney history that there has been a rematch in the final from the previous year. The game can also be heard on 104.1 The Bridge with Dave Friedman and Mike Pacheco calling the action."I'm proud of our guys for getting back to the championship game," said Winthrop head coach
Pat Kelsey. "We left here in second place a year ago, and now we have another chance at it. We're lucky and excited for that opportunity. All of the credit goes to how hard these guys have worked since conditioning began back in August."
Sophomore
Keon Johnson paced four Eagles in double-figures with 15 points while
Keon Moore added 14 while
Andre Smith and
Xavier Cooks each had 11. The Eagles improved to 10-0 on the year with four or more players in double-figures and 8-0 with four.
Derrick Henry played 19 minutes off the bench finishing with five points, six rebounds, two assists, a block and two steals.
After Longwood cut the Winthrop lead to eight points after scoring off consecutive turnovers, Moore answered with a three for a double-figure lead again and then Johnson came up with a steal as he went coast-to-coast for the layup and a 14-point lead with 5:25 to play. Winthrop held a double-figure lead the rest of the way.
"Tip of the cap to Longwood, their players and their coaches," said Kelsey. "The rejuvenation and the passion they were playing with scared the heck out of me. Those kids were flying around. I told our guys last night that you'd better meet fire with fire. That's a testament to the caliber of coach Jayson Gee is."
Winthrop finished the game shooting 42 percent after shooting 57 percent in the second half. Longwood was held to 35 percent shooting for the game. Winthrop dominated the glass with a 41-30 advantage and had a big advantage in second chance points, 19-4. Moore was a perfect 8-for-8 at the foul line as the Eagles finished the game 22-for-30.
Quincy Taylor and Leron Fisher combined for 46 points as they were 15-for-28 from the floor while the rest of the Lancers were 4-for-26 from the floor.
The largest lead of the game came at the 10:44 mark of the second half when a Smith jumper in the lane put the Eagles in front 48-32. Longwood came right back with six straight points on threes from Fisher and Taylor but Smith responded with a triple, only to see Taylor knock down another to cut the lead back to 10. The Eagles continued to hold off the Lancers efforts to cut the lead down as they held a double-figure lead for the majority of the second half.
Winthrop outscored the Lancers 17-4 to finish the half and lead 30-20. The Eagles got a stop defensively as Longwood looked to close the gap before the break, but Moore came up with a steal and the Eagles called timeout to set up a final play for the half. Cooks slipped a pass to Moore on a backdoor cut but then Moore was cut off so he kicked the ball back out to Cooks, who then buried a three at the buzzer for the double-figure lead.
Shaquille Johnson stepped to the line with 10:16 to play in the half and the Lancers leading 16-13 but missed both free throws and that's when the Eagles went on a 9-0 run to grab a 22-17 lead with 4:18 to play after two free throws from
Duby Okeke. The Eagles held Longwood without a point for 6:54 to build its lead as the scoring drought ended with a free throw by Jason Pimentel with 3:57 left and then Taylor hit the team's first non-three-point field goal as the shot clock expired with 2:46 left to make it a three point game at 22-19. Two free throws by Moore put the Eagles up 24-19 and then threes from Smith and Cooks pushed the lead to 10.
Neither team was shooting the ball well in the first half but the Eagles started to knock down some shots and continued to play tough on the defensive end. Winthrop forced 10 turnovers and held Longwood to 23 percent shooting from the floor and just 1-for-12 on shots inside the three-point line.
