Winthrop-UNC Asheville overtime finish was worthy of its ESPNU audience

Mark Prosser doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything like it.

With 1:41 left in overtime — on the most important possession of Winthrop’s most important game to date of the 2021-22 season — Chase Claxton turned around, bee-lined from the top of the key and initiated the game-changing sequence that gave Winthrop an 86-80 win on Thursday night in Rock Hill.

Here’s how it went down: UNC Asheville’s Drew Pember looked to have an uncontested layup with the game tied at 79. But Claxton, the junior forward, stuffed the chance — and once a stunned Pember collected his rebound and set himself up for another shot, Claxton’s frontcourt mate Kelton Talford joined in on the fun. Another block.

“All instincts,” Talford told reporters of the play postgame with a smile.

And that next possession? Drew Buggs found Claxton for a dunk on a backdoor cut.

81-77.

The Eagles wouldn’t trail the rest of the way.

“Almost on a game to game basis, you see something that’s so impressive,” Prosser told reporters postgame. “Like, I don’t know if I’ve seen a play like that before. ... It was a huge play, a huge moment in the game. And it might’ve turned the tide a little bit.”

The Eagles (9-6, 2-0 Big South), with the win, stay undefeated at home this season — and they do so again in dramatic fashion. (Winthrop has seen fantastic finishes in the Coliseum in just a handful of tries this season. Think the Mercer overtime win. Or the Furman win. Or even the win over Campbell on Monday, which featured a game-winning fade-away bucket by Drew Buggs.)

Not only that, the Eagles avenge a stinging loss from last season. The Bulldogs, of course, were the last team to defeat Winthrop on its home floor — and that served as a motivator all week for the Eagles.

“All of us have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” senior guard Mike Anumba said postgame. “It showed from our practices and from our preparations, and that feels amazing to be able to beat them at home. In front of our crowd. On ESPN. So it’s just great.”

Here’s what else you need to know.

Winthrop, UNC Asheville shoot well

Both offenses started fast — each shooting above 48% from the floor in the first half and relying on some tried-and-true playmakers to get the job done. UNC Asheville big man Pember led all scorers with 15 in the first half; Anumba (nine points) and Kelton Talford (eight) led the Eagles.

Winthrop led 39-36 entering the break.

The team’s didn’t cool off in the second — Winthrop shot 53% for the game (despite going 0-for-9 in the second half and overtime from three); UNC Asheville shot 46.8% — and thus the game remained close: Winthrop and UNCA were never separated by more than three points in the final four minutes of regulation.

With 33 seconds left, Winthrop’s Cory Hightower drove to the basket and used a beautiful seal by DJ Burns to score an uncontested layup to make it 75-73.

The ensuing possession, UNCA’s LJ Thorpe (who finished with a game-high 24 points) hit a floater to tie the game at 75.

And then a Buggs miss off the front rim as time expired forced overtime — but the Eagles commanded that period to remain undefeated in Big South play.

UNC Asheville and Winthrop a Big South rivalry worth blooming

It was clear UNC Asheville and Winthrop would make for a fun matchup on Thursday night.

The pregame narrative was compelling: The Bulldogs, as aforementioned, were the last to defeat Winthrop at home, back in January of 2021. That 57-55 game ended a 21-game Winthrop winning streak that had delivered the Rock Hill school incalculable national attention and admiration — and, for a moment, that game felt like it could change the complexion of Winthrop’s historic 2020-21 season. (It didn’t, turns out.)

The matchup on paper was dazzling in of itself, too. The game featured two teams sitting atop the Big South who were mirror images of each other. Coming into Thursday, they were the two most prolific 3-point shooting teams in the league — hitting 9.7 and 9.6 threes a game, respectively — but still boasted formidable frontcourts. (Premier big Pember transferred from Tennessee to UNC Asheville this past summer. Preseason conference player of the year DJ Burns arrived in Rock Hill in 2019 from Tennessee, too. How’s that for symmetry?)

And, of course, the game was on national television. It was broadcast on ESPNU.

Pregame hoopla aside, the Eagles and Bulldogs proved on Thursday night that they each could deliver basketball that’s equal parts chippy and disciplined and fun. They proved, in other words, that their rivalry has teeth — and that it’s one worth preserving.

“They lay stake to the claim of kind of dominating the league the last two years, so it needs to be somebody,” UNC Asheville coach Mike Morrell told reporters postgame. “We’d rather it be us than not.

“And again, there’s a lot of good teams in our league, but I think if you look at the history of this game, it’s been really good over the years.”

Kelton Talford sees a breakout game

The two best frontcourts in the Big South were on display on Thursday night. And reserve forward Kelton Talford wanted in on the action and became the unlikely protagonist to propel Winthrop.

The Great Falls native finished with a tied-for-career-high 16 points on 8-of-11 shooting and six rebounds and two blocks — at times being the most reliable player on the floor for the Eagles.

He produced offensively with put-backs. With fastbreak dunks. With sophisticated post-up moves that made him look more like his back-to-the-basket elder, Burns.

With everything.

“Last year, they came here and beat us on our home floor, only ones to do that home,” Talford said. “We just had the thought of them dancing on our floor last year coming into this year, and we just did whatever we had to do to get the win.”

Other notes

▪ Winthrop’s free-throw shooting woes continued on Thursday night. Lucky for the Eagles? UNC Asheville shot poorly, too. Winthrop finished 12-of-20 from the line (60%) and the Bulldogs shot 12-of-18 (67%) — a vexing stat considering the teams’ solid field-goal percentages.

▪ Winthrop saw splashes of contributions everywhere: Anumba played a season-high 38 minutes and scored a team-high 18 points. Hightower finished with another double-double: 13 points and 11 rebounds. And Burns, despite not being the most prolific scoring forward on his team like usual on Thursday, still played well, particularly in the second half. The redshirt junior finished with 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting.

This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 11:02 PM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.