Published: Thursday, Jan. 08, 2009 / Updated: Thursday, Jan. 08, 2009 07:48 AM

Winthrop men's basketball team falls at home to High Point for first time

High Point 42; Winthrop 40

In a game that will not qualify for the SportCenter highlights, High Point got a rebound basket from Cruz Daniels with 2.4 seconds left to beat Winthrop 42-40 on Wednesday in the Winthrop Coliseum.

For two teams normally accustomed to playing games that have a bearing on first place in the Big South Conference, this one, between two young teams still searching for themselves, gave each a piece of the cellar at 1-3.

For High Point coach Bart Lundy, the game tape will look like an offensive instructional tape, or at least the last couple of minutes will.

For Winthrop coach Randy Peele, it will look like what it was -- an offensive disaster at just the wrong time -- just about every minute of it.

The Eagles (2-11) were coming off their first league win and hoping to gather some momentum. Instead, most of their jump shots gathered nothing but rim, backboard or air. They shot 26.4 percent, their second-lowest shooting percentage since the program moved to NCAA Division I in 1986. They shot 25 percent in a 1999 NCAA loss to Auburn.

While the Panthers (5-9) weren't a lot better -- 35.4 percent -- they at least made a couple of shots when they had to, including the game-winner that snapped a four-game losing streak and gave the Panthers their first win in the Winthrop Coliseum.

Daniels, who had just eight points, said that first win at Winthrop "felt good."

"It feels like a championship game every time we play them," he added.

Lundy, a Winthrop graduate and former assistant with the Eagles, said he wasn't sure he'd ever been in a 42-40 game. He admitted he'd been in some games where his team scored that many and lost.

"But," he said, "I'm very happy with 42 points. It's fantastic."

Peele called it "very much a heartbreaking loss."

The Panthers scored the final five points after the Eagles had taken a 40-37 lead with 1:40 left on a Charles Corbin basket. The Eagles had erased a 33-28 High Point lead, with point guard Reggie Middleton netting five straight points and Justin Burton adding another bucket.

After Corbin's score, Eugene Harris, who had missed his first seven 3-pointers, made a fallaway from deep in the corner to tie it at 40 with 1:13 to go.

"He stepped into that one like he'd made five of them," Lundy said.

At the other end, Middleton missed a contested 3-pointer with three seconds left on the shot clock. Coming off a screen, he went left when he should have gone right. The shot, like many for Winthrop, didn't have a chance.

"He made a decision that wasn't the right decision," Peele said.

Lundy called time with 15.1 seconds left and put the ball in the hands of David Singleton, who was being guarded by Middleton, who had four fouls.

"We told him to attack," Lundy said, "and we told our guys that the second shot usually wins the game. He got it deep. That second shot kills you."

Singleton got past Middleton, who wasn't aggressive enough, but Corbin got a piece of the shot. Unfortunately, it was Corbin's man who was left with a path to the glass, and Daniels cleaned up the miss.

"The plan was to spread them out and take them off the dribble," Daniels said. "We went to the boards hard, which is what we've been working on the last three or four weeks."

Asked if anyone got a body on him, Daniels' quick reply was "not at all."

Winthrop got a timeout with 2.4 seconds left, but the best they could do was a heave from midcourt by Cameron Stanley, who finished with 10 points, the game's only double-figure scorer.

Peele said the loss was the most difficult of the year.

"At this point, they're all tough," Peele said, "but no one loss is harder on the kids or the staff than another. But this one stings in particular because we were just coming off a win and we were feeling good about ourselves."

High Point stifled that good feeling with a 2-3 zone. Lundy decided to go with a big lineup of the 6-foot-11 Daniels, 6-9 Steadman Short and 6-7 Jourdan Morris up front. With Daniels and Short on the wings, the Panthers provided a couple of big obstacles to go over.

While they mixed in some light full-court pressure into the defense, the Panthers mostly backed it up in the lane and dared the Eagles to shoot.

Of Winthrop's 53 shots, 23 were 3-pointers, not a good mix for a team shooting 27 percent from behind the arc.

"We relied way too much on the three," Peele said.

The Panthers, no great shakes at shooting themselves, made enough shots when it counted, and they got 13 points off offensive rebounds. Winthrop had just seven points off 12 offensive boards.

Despite the records, the teams reacted when it was over like it was a game for first place. Players had to be separated on the floor, and Lundy and Peele had a heated conversation in the hallway between their locker rooms.

Peele said he heard Short, who chose High Point over Winthrop in a heated recruiting battle, say something to one of his players. Peele said he overreacted to what was said.

Short had nine points and 11 rebounds in 27 minutes.

Harris and Winthrop freshman Andre Jones also exchanged words.

"It was two teams battling trying to win a game," Peele said. "It was a very hard loss and tempers were lost toward the end."

Lundy said "emotions were high."

"Both teams recruited Steadman, and I'll leave it at that," Lundy said. "Both teams wanted to win the game."