Down by nine points with 51 seconds left in Saturday’s game against the Mercer Bears, Mark Prosser’s Winthrop Eagles appeared to be in line for their first loss of the 2021-2022 season.
Mercer’s Felipe Haase (a transfer from the University of South Carolina, now in his second season with the Bears) had scored 40 points as his team led Winthrop, 79-70. However, it still wouldn’t be enough to hold off the Eagles.
“Really good players made really good plays,” Prosser said, describing the effort his players exerted to tie the game and force overtime. “The last minute, I watched … sort of in awe, just like everybody else was.”
With 43 seconds remaining, graduate transfer Patrick Good drained a three-pointer to make the score 79-73. Good then stole the ball from Mercer, and Winthrop’s Sin’Cere McMahon (a transfer from Western Carolina) was fouled during the fast break with 34 seconds to go.
McMahon hit both of his free-throw attempts to reduce Winthrop’s deficit to four points. Winthrop’s Russell Jones Jr. then quickly fouled a Mercer player to stop the clock at 28 seconds.
After Mercer went one-for-two at the line, Jones Jr. quickly rebounded the ball and dribbled coast-to-coast, taking the ball all the way to the basket and bringing the Eagles within three points with 20 seconds left in regulation.
On the next play, as Mercer tried to inbound the ball, Winthrop’s McMahon intercepted the pass and immediately passed it to Good, who already had his feet set behind the arc. Good said he knew he was going to hit the shot before he even took it.
“Those are the shots that I work on, so it wasn’t out of character, and my teammates trust me, and they know, and the coaching staff trusts me as well,” Good said. “This is what I came here to do. I didn’t come here for anything else but to win basketball games and to win the championship.”
While Chase Claxton produced a block during the final moments of regulation to fend off a last-second Mercer victory, Good’s tying three-pointer is what ultimately gave the Eagles a chance to keep fighting.
“It’s easy to believe in a guy who’s always putting in work,” Jones Jr. said of Good.
Jones Jr. said he has known what Good was capable of since he faced off against him two seasons ago when Winthrop traveled to East Tennessee State.
Prosser also noted that he has seen Good sink big shots before, as Good’s ETSU team competed against Prosser’s Western Carolina team multiple times by virtue of competing in the Southern Conference.
“To see him do it wearing our uniform is a lot of fun,” Prosser said.
With Good being the second shortest scholarship player on Winthrop’s roster, he said he has experienced similar adversity to teammate Jones Jr., who is the shortest at 5-foot-6.
“Me and Russ have been in two similar situations with being overlooked just because of our height,” Good said. “I’m satisfied with the height that I have because maybe I wouldn’t have the same motivation and the same adversity that I have at 5-10 [or] 5-11.
“At the end of the day, me and Russ are going to give everything we have because, statistically, we’re not supposed to be here,” Good said. “You look at the average height for a college basketball player; we’re nowhere across the board supposed to be here, but we’re here, so we’re going to make the most of it every single day.”
Winthrop trailed by 11 at halftime, and at one point in the second half, the Eagles were down by 15. With about 12 minutes to go in the half, Jones Jr. lit a fire under the Eagles when he ripped off steals on back-to-back possessions, taking the first in for a floater inside the paint and pulling up for an open three the second time around.
“That was just a lot of hunger built up,” Jones Jr. said. “We’re not used to that (being down big), but it’s something that we’ve been through before, so I know we’ve got to keep pushing.”
Jones Jr. mentioned that Winthrop trailed by 15 early against Hampton in the Big South Championship game his freshman year before, ultimately, storming back for an eight-point victory.
“We just had to buckle down and be us,” Jones Jr. said.
He said that’s essentially what Prosser told the team at halftime — to be themselves.
“He told us at halftime [to] just be us,” Jones Jr. said. “We had nine deflections at the half, and that’s not really us. We’re a good team offensively, but to win a championship and go where we want to go, we’re going to have to get on the defensive end.”
Winthrop completed the comeback in overtime as Cory Hightower (Winthrop’s other transfer from Western Carolina) sank a go-ahead three-pointer with eight seconds to go, and Jones Jr. purposefully fouled to prevent Mercer from getting a chance at a three-point play of its own.
The Eagles won 88-85 and now face a daunting four-game road trip (which began at Middle Tennessee on Tuesday).
Jones Jr. said that in talking with former Winthrop basketball stars like Chris Gaynor, Michael Jenkins and Torrell Martin, he could see how their ability to beat big teams stemmed from their belief that they could beat those teams.
“I believe that we can beat anybody in the country,” Jones Jr. said. “I feel like, if you don’t have that mindset when you’re going against those top teams, you don’t need to be playing basketball. You’ve got to believe that you can beat anybody that steps in front of you.”
Winthrop will face Vanderbilt on Saturday, followed by Washington State on Monday and Washington on Nov. 27.
