Winthrop pulls away in second half for win

Truett-McConnell College had the cooler looking pregame warm-ups, but lost the basketball game to the Winthrop Eagles Tuesday night 106-78.

The NAIA Division II Bears made Winthrop sweat in the first half, before the Eagles were able to string together enough defensive stops midway through the second half to tilt the game in their favor, scoring over 100 in consecutive games for the first time in program history. Six Winthrop players hit double digits for the second straight outing, led by Xavier Cook’s 19 points.

Winthrop came into Tuesday night with 41 straight wins against non-Division I opposition, the last loss suffered during Dan Kenney’s final season as coach, a 79-77 defeat against Anderson in 1997.

Perhaps drawing confidence from its really nifty navy candy-striped warm-up pants, Truett-McConnell hit 8-of-13 3-pointers in the first half, with Andretti Loyd personally connecting on 5-of-6 from that range.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to Truett-McConnell. They have very dangerous offensive weapons,” said Winthrop coach Pat Kelsey. “It wasn’t anything about our guys underestimating our opponent. When you give a very good scorer rhythm and confidence early, you never know what can happen.”

As good as Loyd was in the first half, Winthrop wasn’t too bad offensively either. The Eagles made 9-of-17 triples in the first 20 minutes, led by Bjorn Broman, who hit four.

A strong move by Zach Price resulted in a left-handed finish and a 23-17 Winthrop lead, but the visitors quickly tied it up with 3’s from Brandon Cerezola and Loyd. Every time Truett-McConnell tied the game in the first half, Winthrop – Broman in particular – offered a quick response. With the game tied at 25, he hit a deep 2-pointer to put the Eagles back in front, and when another Loyd triple tied the game at 33, Broman answered with a 3-pointer to nudge the hosts back in front again.

Winthrop out-scored the Bears 7-2 in the last minute of the half to take a six-point lead into the break.

Turning point

The Eagles finally shook Truett-McConnell with an 11-0 run in the middle portion of the second half. Winthrop held the Bears without a field goal for over 8 minutes, while putting together an offensive spurt of its own to create some separation. Six straight points by Cooks got the momentum rolling and a muscular offensive rebound and putback, plus the foul, by Duby Okeke made the lead 60-49, forcing a Bears timeout.

“When we expanded the lead in the second half is when we started stringing stops together,” Kelsey said.

By the time Truett-McConnell broke its field goal drought, Winthrop’s lead was 20-plus points.

“They were getting rhythm 3’s and we can’t let that happen,” said Cooks. “Full credit to them but we had to step up a little bit.”

Critical

Coming off a Saturday loss in which Truett-McConnell hit just three 3-pointers, the Bears shot the ball very well in the first half against Winthrop. But when the 3’s dried up and the Eagles shut off the driving lanes, they were able to seize control of the game. Kelsey’s team is scoring the ball with ease early in the season, but clearly has work to do on the defensive end of the court.

“We can really play defense,” said Okeke, “we’ve just got to stay disciplined and implement it.”

Star contributions

Broman continues to show that he’s ready for college basketball, scoring 15 points Tuesday night to follow up the 16 he had in the season opener against Hampton.

Cooks followed up his 22 points in the opener with another good outing, scoring 19 to go with 11 rebounds.

Okeke was also solid, posting 11 points, five rebounds and five blocked shots. Keon Johnson (15), Adam Pickett (13) and Jimmy Gavin (10) were the Eagles’ other double-digit scorers.

On deck

Winthrop completes its three-game home-stand to open the season Friday against Jacksonville State. The Gamecocks were 2-1 as of Tuesday night, with a pair of wins over non-Division I opponents. Jacksonville State plays Virginia Tech Wednesday night. Winthrop has the chance to start a season 3-0 for the first time since 2008.

This story was originally published November 17, 2015 at 9:17 PM with the headline "Winthrop pulls away in second half for win."