Winthrop to vie for 2nd straight NCAA Tournament bid after 21-0 run pummels Longwood
Winthrop is headed to the Big South tournament final.
The Eagles defeated Longwood, 82-61, in front of a spread-out but mighty crowd in the Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill on Thursday night. The dominant win in the conference tournament semifinal puts them one win away from earning a second consecutive, ever-elusive NCAA Tournament bid — one they couldn’t cash out last year because of the pandemic.
They’ll play Campbell on Sunday at 12 p.m. on ESPN at home.
“I would say I think we’re playing our best basketball at the right time,” Winthrop head coach Pat Kelsey told reporters via Zoom postgame. “I think we played really well tonight. I think we played really well against High Point. And you just hope to be firing on all cylinders at this time of the year. That’s all you can ask for.”
Winthrop jumped out to a 19-3 lead. Near the 13-minute mark, Longwood was 1 for 11 from the field and Winthrop was 8 for 14. For a moment in the first half, it looked like Longwood was actively searching for rock bottom — while Winthrop, conversely, was just floating to a 17th all-time Big South tournament final appearance.
The Lancers were able to pick themselves up eventually, though. Redshirt junior guard Juan Munoz scored 14 points in the first half, including five in a row that cut the lead to three with 5:42 remaining in the first period.
But then the Eagles scored 11 consecutive points — including a Kyle Zunic teardrop as the halftime buzzer sounded — to head into the break up 14, and they never looked back.
The run got to as much as 21-0 at one point early in the second half, but well before then, it was clear: The Eagles were headed to the Big South tournament final — not because they’re the king of a dunce conference, like the rest of the country might choose to think they are.
But because, by all indications, they’re for real.
Winthrop was led by Charles Falden, who scored 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting, and Kelton Talford, who scored 11 off the bench.
Big South Player of the Year Chandler Vaudrin contributed 16 points, eight rebounds and nine assists — a few plays shy of two triple-doubles in as many games.
Notable: Sunday marks a full, crazy year
March 8, 2020, was the last game last year’s Winthrop team played.
The Eagles hadn’t lost. They hadn’t received any closure. They hadn’t left on their own terms. They still had basketball to play.
This coming Sunday (March 7) will mark 364 days since Winthrop coach Kelsey had to do something uniquely painful in his basketball career: He had to tell his players, who’d done everything right, that they had to move on.
“Back then, on a really difficult day, we got the news that we had qualified for the NCAA Tournament but couldn’t play in it,” Kelsey told reporters postgame. “It was just going to be a challenge in terms of how we respond to not only this, but everything else that’s going to be thrown at us over the course of the 12 months until we get back to this date on Sunday.”
In those 12 months, a lot of bad (and good) happened, Kelsey said. Among the bad: His team’s season ended prematurely. So did the college careers of beloved big man Josh Ferguson and D2-to-D1 inspiration Hunter Hale.
And what all could Kelsey tell his incoming team? Learn from this year. And repeat.
“From last year, when it got around tournament time with our seniors Hunter Hale and Josh Ferguson, we wanted to really set the tone and come out aggressive,” senior guard Charles Falden said postgame on Thursday. “We had flipped the switch when the tournament came on. We have the same team besides those guys, so we’ve all been here, in this moment before. …
“We just came in with the same mindset as last year. To be aggressive. To just be us.”
Quotable: ‘If I knew how to stop us, I would tell you’
The Lancers threw a lot of different defensive looks at Winthrop (matchup zone, man-to-man), but they couldn’t stop the Eagles. How do you stop Winthrop, Chandler Vaudrin?: “I think people are trying to figure that out, and they haven’t yet. We just have so many different lineups. You put DJ in ... and you can throw the ball to him for five minutes straight and watch him work out. If you take DJ out and put someone like Jamal (King) in who can spread the floor and shoot — and he’s still athletic enough to rebound. ... So if I knew how to stop us, I would tell you. I just don’t know how to.”
Juan Munoz on what makes Winthrop great: “Their culture. They play hard. They play together and for each other. And I think that’s what impresses me the most because a lot of guys want to go get theirs, but this team is so united and so together, it’s hard to beat them. And they flexed their muscles tonight.”
Falden on getting into a rhythm despite not shooting well at the end of the regular season: “It just comes from the confidence of my coaches and teammates in me. I was struggling coming in from the High Point games. I had three the first game, zero the second game, and they just told me to do what I do. ... I was just ready to shoot and be confident.”
Deshaun Wade on who he thinks will win the Big South final: “I got Winthrop, man. Like I said: I’ve played them five times in my whole career as a Lancer so far. Five or six. And nothing changes with them. ... They’re focused. They’re the exact same no matter who they’re playing against.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 9:32 PM.
.jpeg)