The High Point University men’s basketball team lost 70-76 to Big South leaders Winthrop in an intriguing affair Friday night. The Winthrop Eagles now improve to 16-1 in conference while the Panthers fall to 6-9. There were some interesting things to take away from this Big South match-up,
The first being: DJ Brown has the scariest grin in college basketball. Not scary because of his teeth, menacing face, or beauty index, but because of the insanely loveable smile he flashed after each of his 22 points Friday evening for the Eagles. Everytime Brown scored, his grin grew in size, in turn becoming scarier and scarier for the Panthers. More fearsome, because it proved he was feeling it- and didn’t think the Panthers could stop him. He led his side with 22 points, which happens to be the most any Winthrop player has scored all season.
The second take away was this: John-Michael Wright shines under the bright lights, so it only makes sense that he’d glow in a game like this. A game that is against the conference leaders and is being nationally televised on ESPNU. The sophomore had his first double-double of the season, scoring a fierce 27 points and pulling in a team high of 10 rebounds. Wright currently leads High Point in minutes averaged, field goals made, three-pointers made, free-throws made, total points scored, points per game averaged, assists and steals- and without his help, the Panthers wouldn’t have found themselves leading by six points at halftime or down by just four points with 10 seconds left in the game.
And last but not least: a good bench is crucial in the game of basketball. The Eagles entered this contest with the second best bench in the country. In Friday’s win over the Panthers, 40 of their 76 total points were from players that came in the game off the bench. Russell Jones Jr. was the second highest scorer of the night for Winthrop, scoring an astoundingly efficient 17 points in 17 minutes.
The Panthers’ bench did not make nearly enough of an impact Friday night, with only 19 points coming from their non-starters. Bryson Childress did sink a beautiful, deep buzzer-beating three which extended Panther’s head coach Tubby Smith’s side to a six point lead before his halftime talk, but his efforts were inevitably not enough and neither were those of his companions that additionally entered the game from the bench for High Point.
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