In nail-biting fashion, Winthrop overcame a 10-point deficit midway through the second half of Saturday’s game to top Gardner-Webb, 64-62.
The Eagles improved to 5-0 in conference play, with other wins against Campbell, UNC Asheville, Charleston Southern and Presbyterian. However, those five wins came at a combined margin of 17 points.
“At the end of the day, for us it doesn’t matter if it’s a one-point or 20-point win,” said head coach Mark Prosser. “The thing that it does do I think is, it makes sure that our guys, all of us, don’t get ahead of ourselves.
“You can watch, especially the last two first halves, and realize it’s not a thing of beauty. We’re sloppy, we’re turning it over too much. We’re not going to the offensive glass enough. We’re giving up too many offensive rebounds. So it sort of gives us the ability to keep our kids’ attention while we’re still, as far as record-wise, doing okay in the league.”
Winthrop trailed by seven points at halftime against the Runnin’ Bulldogs, but shot just over 53% from the field in the second half to pull off the victory. Redshirt-junior DJ Burns Jr. recorded 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting.
“Coming off a 31-point game, the focus was [Patrick Good], and that opened up a few more opportunities for me, because I wasn’t getting doubled, because they were trying to find him,” Burns said.
Good’s 31-point performance that Burns alluded to led the Eagles to a narrow win at Presbyterian on Jan. 20, as the graduate transfer went 7-for-11 from deep. Following Saturday’s game, Good ranked 10th in the nation in 3-point percentage, shooting 46.8% from behind the arc.
Burns also ranks top-10 across DI in an offensive category, coming in at sixth in field goal percentage. After Saturday’s performance, the 6-foot-9 big man was shooting 62.3% from the floor on the season.
“I am happy with how much he’s getting the ball,” Prosser said of Burns. “Normally, good things happen. He’s a willing passer out of the post too.”
At halftime of Saturday’s game, things got chippy for a moment as players began to scuffle when retreating to the locker rooms. According to Burns, one of Gardner-Webb’s players hit Winthrop’s Jamal King.
“We aren’t out here looking for trouble, but we’re not punks either. You’re not just going to hit my guy like that,” Burns said.
“I really think what happened at halftime just got our guys a little extra locked in because then we had a reason to come out and try our best to kick their butts. We had a little chill vibe to us at first, and I think that lit a fire under us.”
The Eagles began a three-game road trip on Monday, traveling to High Point. Winthrop struggled offensively against the Panthers, losing its first conference game of the season, 65-56, despite sophomore Kelton Talford’s 17-point, 10-rebound effort.
Winthrop, now 5-1 against Big South opponents, faces USC Upstate (also 5-1) on Wednesday in Spartanburg before traveling to Farmville, VA to take on the 5-0 Longwood Lancers.
