What we learned in Winthrop basketball’s road loss to SEC team Vanderbilt
After hanging tough for 20 minutes, Winthrop let Vanderbilt of the SEC pull away in the second half with surprising ease en route to a 77-63 loss.
Here’s what we learned.
Cory Hightower emerged in first half but held scoreless in second
Like he has all season, when Winthrop struggled in the first half of Saturday’s contest, Cory Hightower kept the team afloat.
The 6-foot-7, 222-pound redshirt junior forward notched 15 points of his team’s 32 points on 5-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc in the first half. That was good enough for all but one of the team’s made 3-pointers before the break. (The second-leading scorer for the Eagles at the half was Patrick Good, who had five points and the only other made three.)
The Eagles were down, 35-32, at halftime.
Hightower, who transferred this past season from Western Carolina with Eagles head coach Mark Prosser, wouldn’t score again though. He only took three more shots — all 3s — in the second half and was on the sideline for long stretches as the Commodores pulled away. (That was in large part because he recorded his third foul with 12:21 left in the game and his fourth with 8:10 left.)
DJ Burns can’t stay out of foul trouble
Coming into Saturday’s contest, Big South preseason Player of the Year DJ Burns was averaging 20 points while shooting 69% from the field — and he was doing it despite missing most of the first half in his last two contests because of early fouls.
Burns still had foul trouble Saturday. But this time, he wasn’t as productive.
The Rock Hill native, who transferred to Winthrop after redshirting at SEC school and Vanderbilt rival Tennessee, went scoreless in the first half on 0-for-1 shooting in eight minutes. He finished with six points on 2-of-4 shooting.
This wasn’t an ideal matchup for the back-to-the-basket, post-up specialist Burns: The Commodores consistently sprinkled in a suffocating 1-3-1 defense, and the Eagles tried to attack it with corner 3-point shooting and baseline drives — and did so unsuccessfully.
Burns fouled out with 1:32 left in the game.
Other notes
▪ Winthrop and Vanderbilt have only played twice. The Commodores were a perfect 14-0 against Big South teams before the contest, and they extended that perfect record Saturday. (Winthrop could’ve notched its first win over an SEC team since 2012 on Saturday.)
▪ Micheal Anumba, Chase Claxton and Russell Jones Jr. took turns defending Vanderbilt’s deep backcourt to no real avail. Still, these three — along with graduate transfer Pat Good — appeared to play hard while the rest of the team looked lethargic and uninspired in the second half.
▪ SEC preseason Player of the Year Scotty Pippen Jr. briefly exited Saturday’s contest with 10:39 remaining in the second half, his hand on what appeared to be his left hip. He re-entered soon after, though, and finished the game with 13 points on 6-of-14 shooting.
This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 9:54 PM.
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