Johnson’s career-high leads Winthrop past Campbell

Asked how he felt about breaking Winthrop’s career record for made 3-pointers, Keon Johnson’s response to a reporter said it all:

“What record?”

The Winthrop scoring machine doesn’t keep up with his latest entries in the school’s basketball record book, but he did enjoy the standing ovation he got from the Winthrop Coliseum crowd when exiting Saturday’s game against Campbell. Johnson scored a career-high 39 points and Winthrop beat the Camels 76-62 to remain in first place in the Big South.

“He knew about it,” Xavier Cooks said about Johnson’s career 3-pointers record, laughing. “Don’t fall for this.”

Cooks also got a standing ovation from a good-sized crowd that included a sea of Rock Hill elementary school children.

“What they saw today was an unbelievable, special performance by a special, special basketball player that only has so many games left in the Coliseum,” Winthrop coach Pat Kelsey said in an homage to his standout, Johnson. “He’s a - what’s the word? - a generational player. He’s a guy they’re gonna talk about around here a couple of decades from now, and the performance he put on tonight was special. He’s been doing it his entire career.”

Winthrop’s 2015-16 regular season Big South title hopes were partially upended by an early loss to Campbell in Rock Hill, the Eagles’ lone conference home defeat that season. But a second half Johnson scoring surge coupled with a string of defensive stops ensured there would be no repeat this year.

Winthrop (18-5, 10-2 Big South) closed the first half on a 10-2 run to lead 32-24 at the break. There were eight lead changes in a close first period but the home team surged ahead late, starting with a Cooks free throw, Bjorn Broman 3 and two Johnson foul shots. Joshua Davenport then nicked the ball away from Campbell star guard Chris Clemons, leading to a Johnson layup and a timeout for the visitors.

Turning point

Winthrop’s run before the half gave the Eagles a cushion, but Campbell (11-13, 4-8) seemed to score every time the hosts’ lead grew to eight or nine points. That trend finally broke late in the game, the Eagles closing with a 14-3 run that put the Camels away. Johnson scored 10 straight points in one stretch, the crowd chanting “You can’t guard him!” which proved true in large portions of Saturday’s game.

“He’s an unbelievable player,” said Campbell’s Kevin McGeehan, becoming the latest Big South coach to describe Johnson’s abilities in a press conference. “You give an unbelievable player time to get a rhythm and get comfortable eventually he’s gonna break through. He was scoring throughout but it was just a matter of him catching fire there.”

Critical

Kelsey brought up Winthrop’s inability to finish off High Point a week prior. He was pleased his team produced the necessary run to finally bury the Camels Saturday, and defense was the difference. Winthrop held Campbell scoreless for nearly 4 minutes - from the sixth to around the 2-minute mark - with Cooks’ blocked shot and a Campbell shot clock violation the highlights that ignited the crowd. That coincided with Johnson’s scoring burst to knock out the visitors.

“At that critical juncture we started getting stop, stop, stop, rebound, rebound, rebound,” said Kelsey, “and we were able to close out the game. I think we showed growth to bounce back and handle this game differently than the High Point game.”

Star contributors

Johnson was extremely efficient on offense, making 14 of 20 shots, 5 of 9 from 3-point range and all six free throws. He also made a couple of the kind of shots that he’s the only player on the team allowed to shoot.

“He’s a bit of a unique player. He can take terrible shots in my opinion, terrible,” Cooks said, grinning at his teammate sitting next to him, “but they’ll go in so you can’t really argue with it.”

Two free throws inside the final 2 minutes gave him a new career-best. The 5-foot-7 speedster’s 39 brought him within 17 points of the school’s career scoring record. His second 3-pointer of the game Saturday gave him 255 for his career, which also set a new school record. Saturday’s effort was Johnson’s fourth 30-point game of his senior year.

Davenport and Bjorn Broman didn’t show up much in the stat sheet but took turns making nice defensive plays on Clemons in the first half especially, Broman forcing a shot clock violation by not biting on Clemons’ jab-steps toward the rim and Davenport drawing a charge and ripping the ball off Clemons to set up a Johnson layup. The leading scorer in the conference still had 24 points but wasn’t a huge factor in the game.

“He’s a tough person to guard because he scores so many different ways,” said Johnson. “It was a team effort. Everybody helped out.”

On deck

Another huge contest for Winthrop against UNC Asheville on Thursday. The game will be aired on ESPNU, with a 7 p.m. tip-off between the two favorites for the Big South’s NCAA tournament berth.

Box score

This story was originally published February 4, 2017 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Johnson’s career-high leads Winthrop past Campbell."