Winthrop and Charleston Southern meet in first of two early conference games

Winthrop will play its first conference game of the 2015-16 basketball season - Wednesday night at Charleston Southern - about three weeks earlier than the last couple of seasons due to a scheduling shift by the Big South.

After VMI left the league two years ago, the Big South has played with 11 men’s basketball teams, leading to a very congested 18-game schedule in January and February. Almost every team had a stretch last season with three games in five days, or four in seven. Moving two games to early December alleviated the pressure teams felt during January and February.

Winthrop (4-1) coach Pat Kelsey said that in a perfect world, most of the league’s coaches would prefer to play all of the conference games in one stretch so that there was a clear separation between conference and non-conference portions of the season. Eighteen league games makes that almost impossible.

The new schedule requires an up-tick in focus during a time of the year where losses for low and mid-major teams - while not rejoiced over - are usually accepted as non-conference learning experiences. A Big South team has never made the NCAA tournament with an at-large bid, so the only games that truly matter happen during five days in early March, the conference tournament.

But to make that four or five-day span easier - achieving byes and better playing times - winning conference games becomes paramount. And that makes Winthrop’s two Big South games this week much more important than beating Jacksonville State or Maryland, the two teams that the Eagles played on similar dates last season.

It’s also trickier, especially for teams like Charleston Southern (2-3) and Winthrop, which both had roster turnover during the offseason. With four-year standouts Arlon Harper and Saah Nimley finally graduated, Barclay Radebaugh’s team features nine new faces this season. Winthrop has six. For two teams still figuring out what they’ll become in March, the early December conference games are a prickly challenge.

“We're a work in progress and we know that,” said Radebaugh, whose team has lsot to Wichita State, Stanford, Arkansas and Akron. “The tough schedule has been great as far as showing weaknesses. It's tough on the confidence. We're hoping that it will pay dividends, and that it's increased our toughness. We need to recover from that, and prepare for a very good Winthrop team that's very hard to guard.”

The Bucs have allowed at least 82 points in their four losses. Nimley is a pro in Lithuania now, but freshman point guard Armell Potter is doing his best to fill in, and looks like a Big South star in the making. In his first college start, Potter had 18 points and five assists in the Bucs’ lone Division I win this season, a 77-76 win over East Tennessee State.

Winthrop will offer a stern first test in conference play of the Bucs’ progress thus far. Four of Radebaugh’s newcomers are freshmen, but only one of Winthrop’s six new faces playing considerable minutes is a rookie, guard Bjorn Broman. Jimmy Gavin and Zach Price are fifth-year seniors and Rod Perkins is a junior that played heavy minutes in the Division II level. Gavin certainly didn’t play like a fresh-faced rookie during Winthrop’s 87-79 loss to N.C. State last Friday, torching the Wolfpack for 38 points in Raleigh.

“He brings a fearlessness and a toughness and a grown man presence about him that sometimes you don’t get from a wide-eyed freshman,” said Kelsey. “That’s a benefit to have guys like Rod (Perkins) and Zach (Price) that are new to our system but were still here last year.”

Conference action begins around the same time that final exams are cranking up across college campuses, and Kelsey’s team practiced just 55 minutes on Tuesday with that in mind. Perkins, Price, Gavin and Anders Broman - the transfer from South Dakota State sitting out this season per NCAA rules - may be new to the Winthrop basketball program, but unlike freshmen, they already know the level of focus and intensity required in a Division I college basketball practice, and they’ve experienced independence.

It will be interesting to see what Winthrop and Charleston Southern’s men’s basketball teams have become when they meet for the second time this season on Jan. 27. But for now? The Eagles are further along.

This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 6:34 PM with the headline "Winthrop and Charleston Southern meet in first of two early conference games."