The favorites or the upstarts? Winthrop and Campbell contest Big South tournament final Sunday

The Big South Conference didn’t get the men’s basketball tournament final it expected, but certainly got one that will be worthy of the national TV audience that Sunday’s 1 p.m. game will receive on ESPN.

Top-seeded Winthrop and Keon Johnson, the tournament hosts and preseason favorites (and player of the year), take on upstarts Campbell and its insatiable scorer, Chris Clemons. The 5-foot-9 guard from Raleigh set the Big South tournament record for cumulative scoring before halftime of Friday’s win over Radford, thanks to his record-breaking 51-point eruption in Thursday’s upset of defending champs UNC Asheville.

“He’s funny, he’s quirky, he’s cool in his own way, and he’s quietly confident,” Campbell coach Kevin McGeehan said about Clemons, who made first team All-Conference and the All-Academic team.

Campbell’s sudden rise - the Camels are playing in their first conference final since 1994 - may seem weird to most Big South basketball followers but McGeehan wasn’t surprised. He took his team to The Citadel for a three-day tournament in early December to simulate the conference tourney experience.

“We played two overtimes games and we split those and then we played Citadel in the last game, which is a very difficult team to prepare for, and we won that game,” McGeehan said. “In my mind it was like we won the tournament. I felt like it was all about the way we prepared, taking a 30 or 45-minute shoot-around and putting in a game-plan and have them be able to apply things that they’ve seen and apply it as well as they could.”

Clemons scored 33 to knock out the Highlanders Friday, making him the first player in tournament history to record back to back games of 30 or more points. Johnson joined him in that elite club three hours later, dropping 31 in Winthrop’s pulsating win over Gardner-Webb to give him 63 points in two games.

Johnson looked totally spent after the Eagles survived Gardner-Webb. His dazed facial expression screamed “get me to bed” and evinced both teams’ gratitude for a Saturday to rejuvenate before the biggest game of the season. That’s a change from recent years; 2012 was the last Big South tournament with an off-day before the final.

“Sometimes you as a coach you want to be able to sleep easy at night knowing you addressed the 500 things on the checklist getting ready for a game,” said Winthrop coach Pat Kelsey. “But if you exhaust your players at the same time it’s sort of diminishing returns. We’ll do a good job of preparing for a tough team to prepare for, and obviously Chris Clemons is playing out of this world right now.”

Of all the Winthrop players, Johnson may benefit most from the recovery day. A reexamination of Friday night’s ESPN3 broadcast showed Johnson hit the floor 16 different times, most of them very hard landings on the Coliseum deck. In Winthrop’s three consecutive conference final defeats, Johnson is a combined 9 for 40 shooting, including 4 for 20 from 3-point range, and averaging less than 10 points per contest.

“You know how Keon plays, he’s a missile going at that rim and the way he falls and hits, trying to get him into the jump circle in one piece is a challenge sometimes,” said Kelsey. “It’ll be nice to have a day off and recharge a bit.”

Campbell will benefit too. The Camels opened the tournament on Tuesday, knocking out Presbyterian, before playing back to back nights against Asheville and Radford. McGeehan’s team used two and three subs in the quarterfinals and semifinals and it’s clear that a Saturday championship would have favored the deeper Winthrop team, if not Johnson specifically.

Would Cinderella’s slipper fit on a camel hoof? Campbell has come from off the radar to find an answer. It’s not dissimilar from McGeehan finding sophomore forward Andrew Eudy out of nowhere, offering the player a scholarship after watching video of him and having him on campus for essentially a tryout.

“We’re here to shock everyone,” said Eudy, who had 14 points and some timely rebounds against Radford.

The buzz is building on both sides, but especially for Winthrop whose players, coaches, fans, students, administrators, supporters (the list goes on) are ready for the Eagles to break through and reach the NCAA tournament for the first time in seven years. Three straight losses in Big South finals have only heightened the anticipation around the proud program, but the opportunity to win a conference title at home for the first time in 10 years will make for a difficult night’s sleep Saturday.

“I’m more excited about the game, I don’t really care about the day off,” Winthrop’s Xavier Cooks said after Friday’s win. “I’m so excited I’d rather play tomorrow.”

Johnson - the former football player that still attacks the rim like one, minus the pads - was asked the same question, if he wanted to play Saturday or have a day off:

“Yeah, I can wait a day,” he said, grinning.

This story was originally published March 4, 2017 at 5:20 PM with the headline "The favorites or the upstarts? Winthrop and Campbell contest Big South tournament final Sunday."