Winthrop-High Point to air on ESPNU

ESPNU has selected the Winthrop-High Point men’s basketball contest scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 25 as its final Big South wild card broadcast of the season.

Game time will be 9 p.m. inside the Millis Center in High Point, N.C., with Kevin Fitzgerald (play-by-play) and Adrian Branch (analyst) on the call from courtside.

The game is a rematch of the league’s first ESPNU wild card broadcast on Jan. 14, an 86-66 victory for the Eagles. In that contest, Winthrop’s Jimmy Gavin led all scorers with 29 points and the victors shot 69.2 percent from the field in the second half (18-of-26). High Point was led by John Brown’s 25 points and 10 rebounds.

Winthrop, currently tied for second in the Big South standings at 8-4, is seeking its first sweep of the Panthers since the 2006-07 season. Keon Johnson is second in the conference with a team-leading 19.9 points per game, which increases to 20.7 points in league contests. Winthrop is the Big South’s top team in point per game and points per possession.

High Point is a half-game out of second-place in the standings at 7-4, and has won the last seven meetings with Winthrop at the Millis Center. Brown is the Big South’s top scorer this season in overall games (20.4) and conference action (21.7). He also ranks fifth all-time in league history with 2,128 points, as he scored his 2,000th career point in the previous meeting with Winthrop on Jan. 14. Brown averages 24.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and makes 55.6 of his field goals in six career games against the Eagles.

The Winthrop-High Point game is the fourth of four Big South ESPNU Wildcard broadcasts this season, and caps the second consecutive season the league had four regular-season games on the 24-hour college sports network.

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 12:13 PM with the headline "Winthrop-High Point to air on ESPNU."