Winthrop avenges previous Big South title game losses, secures NCAA bid
Three straight years, Keon Johnson had been part of Winthrop teams that reached the Big South title game only to fall one win shy of an NCAA tournament bid.
On Sunday, the dynamic 5-foot-7 guard made sure it wouldn’t happen to him a fourth time.
Johnson scored a team-high 26 points to lead top-seeded Winthrop to a 76-59 victory over seventh-seeded Campbell in Sunday’s Big South title game. Twelve of Johnson’s points came in the opening four minutes of the second half, fueling a surge that extended a seven-point halftime lead to 16 only moments later.
The brilliant performance from Johnson was a stark contrast to a year ago when he fizzled on the Big South’s biggest stage. Johnson scored only two points on nightmarish 1-for-16 shooting in a 77-68 title game loss to UNC Asheville.
Motivated by the chance to erase the memory of those struggles, Johnson excelled in all three of Winthrop’s Big South tournament games this year. He torched Charleston Southern and Gardner-Webb for 31 points apiece in the quarterfinals and semifinals, proving tough to keep out of the lane and lethal from behind the arc.
It’s fitting that this is the year Winthrop finally broke through because this is probably the best of the four teams coach Pat Kelsey has taken to the Big South title game. The Eagles (26-6, 15-3) upset Illinois in Champaign back in November and then nearly ran the table in the Big South regular season, dropping three games by a total of eight points.
Getting Winthrop back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2010 will surely make Kelsey a candidate for some higher-profile jobs this spring, but now is not the time for him to worry about that.
For now, he and his star senior guard can celebrate a break-through victory after three years of title game heartache.
SPOTLIGHTING: WINTHROP
Record: 26-6, 15-3
Top player: Keon Johnson, G, Senior (22.4 ppg)
Coach: Pat Kelsey, fifth year
Last NCAA bid: 2010
Record in last 10: 9-1
RPI/KenPom: 70/114
Projected NCAA seed: 14
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
