Winthrop basketball banking on easier looks at the basket

After several years of leaning on 3-point shooting, Winthrop men’s basketball looks set for a season of scoring closer to the basket.

The Eagles open the 2015-16 campaign at home Saturday against NCAA tournament team, Hampton. Pat Kelsey’s Winthrop squad is certainly an unfinished canvas, but even in Game One fans should see a team that isn’t as reliant on the fickle 3.

“Now, we’re still gonna launch 3’s,” said Kelsey. “That’s what we do.

"But I feel like when we weren’t making shots, it was just keep shooting them. And being able to ‘woah, woah, whah, slow the train, that sucker is going in between the pipes,’ and throw it in, I feel like for the first time that we can do that a little bit.”

The graduation of two of the Big South’s shooting aces, Andre Smith and Keon Moore, is in part responsible for the slight shift away from 3-point-focused offense. The Eagles do still boast capable gunners in preseason all-conference pick Keon Johnson, junior transfer Roderick Perkins, freshman Bjorn Broman and fifth-year grad student Jimmy Gavin. Kelsey thinks the Eagles will still be a very good shooting team.

That said, Winthrop should have more reliable offensive options inside than at any point in Kelsey’s tenure at the school. Fifth-year, 6-foot-10 center Zach Price is finally able to play, giving the Eagles their first big man with ability to generate his own offense since maybe Andy Buechert, who played for Randy Peele’s teams from 2008 to 2010. Redshirt sophomore Duby Okeke is improving with his back to the basket, but should still be a source of easy buckets, whether cleaning up misses or hammering home slam dunks off guard penetration.

And sophomore Xavier Cooks, another preseason All-Big South pick by the coaches and media, may be the biggest reason the Eagles should score more consistently inside the arc this season. Whether he’s finishing at the rim or creating with his unique passing ability, Cooks is a weapon at close-range.

“Essentially, your best all-around player 6 feet from the basket making a play,” Kelsey said. “I feel like we can play inside-out a little more.”

Winthrop got 32.6 percent of its scoring from beyond the 3-point arc last year, 72nd most out of NCAA Division I’s 351 squads. Less than 50 percent of Winthrop’s buckets were 2-point field goals, a figure that ranked in the bottom fifth.

“I think we have a better post presence,” said Johnson. “Last year we didn’t really have that. We’ve been able to adjust to their playing styles.”

The Eagles have some lineups where they can go really big this season, in some cases trotting out 6-foot-8 shot-blocker Okeke and Price at the same time, with 6-foot-8 Cooks at small forward and 6-foot-5 Perkins at shooting guard.

“This year is really interesting because half of the team is new, everybody brings something unique to the table,” said Okeke. “I feel like everybody can be a threat where last year was just two guys and Keon Johnson. I feel like we’ll be more of a team when it comes to scoring.”

There should be other sources of easy offense too. Kelsey expects this bunch to be a better offensive rebounding team, a considerable weakness for each of his teams thus far. Price, Okeke, Cooks, Perkins can all rebound their positions very well, in part because of their size, athleticism and length.

There is also the new (and shorter) 30-second shot clock, which Kelsey thinks will help out the Eagles’ pack-line defense by creating a little more urgency for opposing offenses.

“I think with our length and our athleticism we’ll steal the ball a little more, create more turnovers,” he said, “which will hopefully lead to more run-outs."

And finally, officials have been mandated to erase hand-checking out of the game. That should create more situations for Johnson to manipulate using his speed and low gravity center. Whether it’s racking up fouls on opposing defenders and getting to the free throw line, or bursting past the first man to put opposing defenses into scramble mode, Johnson’s threat should be ratcheted up if the zebras hold true to their preseason promises.

“I think that’s a key thing for me because I’m an aggressive point guard,” Johnson said Thursday. “I think I can create a lot fouls because they’re not allowed to do certain things.”

Okeke said that Winthrop drew 77 fouls in its two preseason scrimmages, indicative of this team’s desire/ability to drive the ball at the rim. All these different sources of offense should help the Eagles avoid a championship game flame-out in the Big South tournament, when the 3-pointers have dried up each of the last two years.

This story was originally published November 13, 2015 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Winthrop basketball banking on easier looks at the basket."