Winthrop scores 9 points in final 51 seconds to rally for win over mid-major power
In a display of entertaining energy and bravado — and a bit of late-game heroics that Winthrop never really was forced to summon last year — the Eagles came from behind to force overtime and ultimately defeat mid-major peer Mercer 88-85 on Saturday afternoon.
At the end of regulation, the Eagles stormed back from being down nine with 51 seconds to force overtime. The final sequence in regulation made the half-filled Winthrop Coliseum shake: Down three, the Eagles forced a turnover (Sin’Cere McMahon steal) on a baseline out of bounds after a Mercer timeout. McMahon then found graduate transfer Pat Good, who pulled up from deep and hit a three to tie the score at 80.
Mercer’s final possession of regulation came up empty and was punctuated by a Chase Claxton block to force overtime.
The Eagles had every opportunity to pull away in overtime, including a foul that sent Winthrop’s Good to shoot three free throws, but they never really did.
The Eagles prevailed nonetheless, though. The deciding shot came thanks to a beautifully drawn-up play that, with the score tied at 85, had big man DJ Burns set a ball screen for Drew Buggs and then a down screen for Cory Hightower. Hightower then nailed the wide-open three from the top of the key to make the game 88-85 with 4.2 seconds left.
The win delivered head coach Mark Prosser the second victory of his tenure and revealed that this Winthrop team isn’t the same one of 2020-21 — but that it’s dangerous nonetheless.
Here’s what we learned.
Winthrop has a spark plug. His name is Russell Jones
With the game at its most bleak — with Winthrop down 11 with 12:20 left in the second half to the Southern Conference giant — Jones gave those on hand in the Coliseum goosebumps.
Guarding Alvarez, Mercer’s star point guard, the guard from Blythewood, S.C., became the team’s spark plug. He pick-pocketed Alvarez on two straight possessions. The first he turned into a fastbreak floater, the second he pulled up for a fastbreak three that made the crowd of a couple thousand sound like the Allen Fieldhouse of Kansas.
Jones has done this before. The 5-foot-8 point guard, who plays like he always has something to prove, did so as a freshman several times — once against Tennessee Tech in one of his first games at Winthrop. He’s endearingly called a “one-man press break” by his teammates.
On Saturday, he was on the floor when it mattered most and finished with 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting and two steals.
“I knew Alvarez was a great player, and I wanted my turn on him all game, from the jump,” Jones told reporters postgame. “When I got in the first time, I didn’t get him, but in the second half I knew I was going to have to guard him. And I knew I was going to have to be me.”
And he was.
Alvarez finished with 28 points on 11-of-18 shooting — 15 of those coming in the first half on 6-of-8 shooting. But in the second half, although he was equally prolific stat-wise, he was subdued a bit by Jones.
At one point late in the second half, Winthrop down four with 4:12 left, Prosser jumped up and down with a smile and clapped and screamed “Let’s go Russ!” like he was a fan, waiting on what his firecracker of a point guard was going to do next.
“He came in a timeout and said, ‘I got him,’ ” Prosser said postgame. “He has the capability to make your life really, really difficult. He did that, and I thought that his effort and energy really encouraged our team and gave our team confidence at the time, and it was a huge turning point in the game for sure.”
Winthrop has a clutch assassin. His name is Pat Good
If Jones took the first shift of invigorating the Winthrop crowd, Good closed the deal.
The guard ended with a team-high 20 points on 7-of-11 shooting in 32 minutes — and nailed the aforementioned shot that gave Winthrop fans a chance to see extra basketball. (He tied for the most minutes on the team Saturday with Micheal Anumba.)
“Throughout the whole game, I felt like our backs were against the wall,” Good said. “They hit us early. They hit us again and hit us again. And we kept responding. At the end of the day, it’s a game of runs as you’ve seen.”
It was interesting to watch: The two players who made the largest impact on Saturday’s game when the game looked lost — Good (listed as a generous 6-foot) and Jones — were also the smallest guys on the court.
Good, with his 2-year-old daughter, Braelyn, in his arms during the interview, explained why that might make sense.
“Russ and I have been in two similar situations of being overlooked just because of our height,” the graduate transfer from East Tennessee State said. “I feel like that gives you an extra chip on your shoulder. So at the end of the day, I’m satisfied with the height I have because maybe I wouldn’t have the same motivation I have and (overcome) the same adversity that I have.”
He added: “So at the end of the day, Russ and I are going to give everything we have because statistically speaking we’re not supposed to be here. ... But we’re here so we’re going to make the most of it every single day.”
Winthrop still reliant on 3, still needs DJ Burns to be good
Prosser didn’t have Burns in his starting lineup Saturday, which might’ve come as a surprise to anyone who was in the gym to see the Rock Hill native score a team-high 30 in the season opener. (Prosser told reporters postgame that his not starting was because of a “slight disciplinary” issue, which was echoed by the fact that Burns’ minutes weren’t hampered in the second half. The Eagles started Kelton Talford in his stead. )
Burns didn’t make an impact in the first half. He scored two points and notched two fouls in four minutes and sat until the midway break arrived. In his absence in the first half, Winthrop’s offense looked a bit directionless.
But Burns played plenty in the second half. He ended up scoring 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting in 24 minutes — a second straight game of 20 or more minutes, which is a stark departure from his average last year. He also added eight rebounds and two assists.
The luxury Burns provides to Winthrop is he can keep the team afloat offensively when its outside shot isn’t falling. And he and fellow big Hightower (17 points, 11 of which were in the first half) did that for the first eight minutes of the second half.
But Winthrop was at its best when the three-point shot came alive. The Eagles ended shooting 14 of 30 from three — nearly as good of a percentage (46.7%) as its 8-of-17 free-throw percentage (47.1%).
Prosser was proud of his big man Saturday.
“What was so encouraging to answer your question, he only finished with two fouls,” Prosser said. “So he played in the second half without fouling, understanding he needed to be more actively defensively without fouling.”
This team is different than last year’s team
Saturday was a stark contrast from anything the Eagles faced in 2020-21. For anyone who remembered last year’s Furman game — a game against another Southern Conference team where Winthrop won big without having to sweat — that much was clear.
Winthrop is old, but it’s new in terms of playing together. The team doesn’t have a coach-on-the-court, one-man show at the point guard spot like last year’s Chandler Vaudrin. It doesn’t rotate its players off the bench like a carousel — players hamster-wheeling through the same amount of minutes no matter how the game changes.
But despite all that, Winthrop showed that it still has a chip on its shoulder — a propensity to think it can always win.
It didn’t need to have that in 2020-21. But it does this year.
Jones spoke on that contrast after the game.
“My freshman year, we were used to that,” Jones said of being ready to come back. He had the fact that his team was down 15 in the Big South championship game in March 2020 on the tip of his tongue. “And last year we were so good as a team that we didn’t have to go through that. You never know that y’all can do it, but you always want to believe that y’all can do it.”
Winthrop hopes to channel that 2019-20 team, too, as it embarks on a difficult stretch through high-major teams on the road next week and beyond. Winthrop made program history when it beat a ranked Saint Mary’s team on the road in 2019.
“I think we’re anxious for it,” Prosser said. Winthrop plays MTSU on Tuesday, then Vanderbilt (Nov. 20), Washington State (Nov. 22) and Washington (Nov. 27) in a row on the road. “We’re going to enjoy this one for a little while. It’s a quick turnaround college basketball coach-wise to play Tuesday night, so we’ll get back and start preparing for Middle Tennessee State tomorrow, but we’re certainly going to enjoy this one.”
Other notes
▪ Claxton was 1 of 6 from the free-throw line and finished with one point. But he was still called on to play important, if not a lot of, minutes (8) on Saturday.
▪ Prosser was called for the first technical foul of his Division I head coaching career Saturday. He told reporters that the official who called it misheard him but also added that “you gotta go off of what you hear in the moment.”
▪ Mercer players not named Felipe Haase (41 points) and Neftali Alvarez (28 points) shot 8 for 28 from the field.
This story was originally published November 13, 2021 at 4:23 PM.
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