In front of a small but rowdy group of fans inside Winthrop Coliseum, the Winthrop men’s basketball team clobbered the Campbell Camels in the Big South Conference Championship on Sunday, earning an 80-53 victory.
The win gives Winthrop an automatic bid into the prestigious NCAA Tournament and adds to an almost-perfect season for the Eagles who are now 23-1.
The first half of Sunday’s big game was closer than the final score may indicate. Campbell’s Ricky Clemons scored first to put the Camels up 2-0, and just a little over five minutes in, the score was tied at 10-10.
At this point, Winthrop started to feed the ball to big-man and Rock Hill-native DJ Burns in the paint. At 6-foot-9, 275 pounds, Burns was a mismatch for every player on Campbell’s roster.
By halftime, Burns had 14 of Winthrop’s 32 total points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field. Despite Burns’ dominance, the Eagles only held a six-point lead heading into the second half.
The Eagles picked up the pace when they returned from the locker room. After a 12-5 run in Winthrop’s favor to start the second half, Burns took the life out of Campbell’s bench with a one-handed slam dunk, giving Winthrop a 46-33 lead.
With Winthrop up 49-36, senior Kyle Zunic added ice to the burn with back-to-back three-pointers, sparking a 12-0 run for the Eagles and boosting their lead to 25 points with 6:49 to go.
With 1:40 remaining, “Up by 30!” chants erupted throughout the Coliseum as two free throws for Chandler Vaudrin gave Winthrop a 77-47 advantage. Those shouts were combined with other cheers as Pat Kelsey sent his last remaining substitutes (Tom Pupavac, Keyshawn Hunter and Nate Buss) into the game.
To put a cherry on top of the big win, Pupavac nailed a shot from behind the arc to hit the 80-point mark for the Eagles. As time expired, sophomore Russell Jones Jr. launched the basketball into the air (just as Hunter Hale did a year prior), and Winthrop’s benched rushed the court in celebration.
Burns finished with 22 points in 21 minutes for Winthrop, only missing one shot in 12 attempts. He, along with seniors Charles Falden and Chandler Vaudrin, earned All-Tournament Team honors.
Vaudrin was also named Big South Tournament MVP, averaging 11.3 points, 10 rebounds, and 8.3 assists through three tournament games. His triple-double in the quarterfinal against High Point was the fourth of his D-I career, making him just the 14th player all-time to record four official triple-doubles at the D-I level.
Winthrop won all three of its conference tournament games decisively, with a 25.67-point average margin of victory. With only one loss on the entire season, Winthrop will enter the NCAA Tournament as one of the best mid-major teams on the bracket, with a serious chance to upset a higher-seeded team.
Currently it looks like the Eagles will be no lower than a 13-seed, but they could potentially end up a seed or two higher. Winthrop fans can tune into the selection show on CBS at 6 p.m. this Sunday to see who Winthrop will face in the Round of 64.
Photo by Olivia Esselman
