Hampton hoops stuns Winthrop Coliseum; Eagles lose 3rd Big South contest in 4 games
Ben Stanley shimmied.
And the Hampton forward — who’d just hit a layup while fouled with just over nine minutes left — deserved to: He’d been the anchor to Hampton’s 2-3 zone that had given the out-of-sync Eagles trouble all game. He’d put DJ Burns, Winthrop’s only source of energy in the first half, in early foul trouble.
He’d screamed. He’d flexed. He’d taken the air out of every Winthrop run and stuck dirt in every Winthrop wound with his lethal, reliable drop step post move. And ultimately, with help from senior Jermaine Marrow, Stanley and his 31 points led Hampton (13-15, 8-7 Big South) to an 87-81 win over the Eagles in the Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill on Saturday afternoon.
“He grew up a lot tonight,” Hampton head coach Edward Joyner said postgame. “One, he waited and let the game come to him. He picked up those two fouls and didn’t lose his composure. More than talking about Ben Stanley, I need to talk more about Pierre Sow, who ain’t played 15 minutes, 20 minutes in a game all year.
“He came in the game for us and was huge. I think those guys, having that kind of ‘center by committee’ tonight, helped us.”
Stanley’s break-out performance juxtaposed against Winthrop’s afternoon. The Eagles (19-10, 13-3 Big South) have lost three of their last four games. After a week off, Winthrop entered Saturday tied for first place in the Big South; now, the team is fluttering in uncertainty as the Big South tournament approaches.
Graduate transfer Hunter Hale — who was one of two double-figure scorers for Winthrop on Saturday, scoring 18 points — said that he and senior Josh Ferguson urged their team after the game to stay together, to stay the course.
“I and Ferg can attest to this,” Hale said. “I had a conference championship at my D-2 school; Ferg has one. It comes down to playing really tough defense and staying together.
“At my D2, we were a 7-seed in our conference tournament and we ended up beating the top three seeds to win the championship, so, what we took from that was, ‘If we’re not going to play for anybody, play for each other.’”
But that advice, although wise, is likely easier delivered than done. Especially when the audience once felt invincible — a month ago riding a 14-game winning streak — and is now trying to find its identity again.
Notable: Eagles fall behind early
The Eagles, in Kelsey’s words, “dug ourselves in a hole.”
It’s happened in each of its last three losses, in fact, as Kelsey said postgame.
“If you look at the Radford game, dug ourselves a hole,” Kelsey said. “You look at the Gardner-Webb game, dug ourselves a hole. This game in the first half...
“I’m not sure what it is. But I know we’re going to get to the bottom of it and figure it out, and that’s on me to do. That’s my job as a leader — to get this thing back on track.”
The Eagles went into the locker room on Saturday down, 43-29, having allowed a 21-5 run in the closing minutes of the first half — proving unable to crack Hampton’s 2-3 zone and inspire the near-3,500 people on hand, per the Winthrop box score.
The Eagles slowly, and familiarly, clawed their way back, by virtue of a few Hale threes and a few timely buckets from Burns.
And come 1:50 left in the game — the Eagles down 79-74 and Hampton’s 6-foot-6 sophomore (Stanley) fouled out — Winthrop had a chance. Stanley’s exit alone, in fact, seemed to give the stadium life.
With the clock ticking down from 47 seconds and the Eagles down three, Winthrop got two clean looks from beyond the 3-point line (one from Hunter Hale, one from Chandler Vaudrin) but neither fell. Hampton sealed the game from the free throw line.
Again, the Eagles fell behind. And again, the Eagles fell short.
Winthrop will travel to USC Upstate on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Quotable: ‘So up and down’
Kelsey on ‘Back The Pack’ night: “I think it’s a reflection on how selfless this community is, how tight-knit this community is, and it really is,” Kelsey said.
On Saturday, fans could bring in a non-perishable food item that would go to a children in need in exchange for admission into the game. Winthrop partnered with the Rock Hill Schools Education Foundation to make this annual tradition happen again.
“There’s so many Rock Hill people that are just proud of their community,” Kelsey continued. “It doesn’t surprise me that initiatives like this happen.”
Hampton coach Joyner on his team’s confidence: “Our year has been so up-and-down. I’m talking about injuries, bad losses. Like I told (my team): You never would have thought that we walked in here in third place for the way that we felt.”
Hale on Winthrop’s comeback: “We got to the free throw line a lot more in the second half, which really helped. But no, I wouldn’t say it was just one particular person. We all stepped up and hit some big shots. But a lot of didn’t fall in the first half, which kind of hurt us.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 5:25 PM.
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