Eagle's streak busted in bluegrass state
Friday, July 9, 2010 at 10:18PM By Steven Bowers
Men’s basketball winning streak ended at 7 games
The Eastern Kentucky Colonels cooked up the perfect recipe to bust the Winthrop Eagles’ seven-game winning streak Saturday night in Richmond, Ky.
The ingredients consisted of playing at home (where they are now 14-1 this season), connecting on 11 3-pointers and getting 20 points from senior guard Josh Taylor.
The end result was a 77-57 loss for Winthrop in the ESPN BracketBuster series that dropped their overall record in BracketBuster games to 3-2 and their season record to 15-11.
More importantly for the Eagles, the loss has absolutely no effect on the Big South regular season race or their primary goal - the conference tournament championship.
“Right now our focus is on us, not EKU,” head coach Randy Peele said.Winthrop was not going to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, win or lose, as no team from the Big South has ever received an at-large berth.
Now, the Eagles can turn their attention to the crucial stretch run in the conference, which consists of the last regular season home game against UNC Asheville (the last conference team to beat Winthrop on Jan. 21) followed by road trips to High Point and Radford on Thursday and Saturday.
That sets up for a brutal three games in five days. One benefit of the final week’s schedule could be that it will serve as a good preview of the conference tournament format the following week.
The schedule could be exactly the same, with a possible Tuesday home game followed by possible Thursday and Saturday games in someone else’s arena.
A Tuesday win against UNC Asheville would guarantee Winthrop a home game the following Tuesday, as the Eagles realistically battle for the second seed in the tournament.
EKU (19-10), out of the Ohio Valley Conference, shot 46 percent on three’s (11-24) and 61 percent overall. Taylor made five of eight three’s for the Colonels.
Super sophomore transfer Matt Morgan continued his recent trend by setting another career-high in scoring for the third time in five games with 18 points on the night.
Sophomore scoring leader Reggie Middleton finished with 10 points and five assists, while senior center Andy Buechert contributed seven points and eight rebounds. Winthrop trailed 36-30 at the half.
EKU is now 3-2 all-time in the BracketBuster series. The Eagles had won at Eastern Kentucky, 84-73, in the 2002-2003 season and followed that up the next year with a one-point win in Rock Hill.
Colonels’ Head Coach Jeff Neubauer said teams look at BracketBuster games in different ways, and this was probably the most important game of the year for his team to get back on track after two conference losses.
Eastern Kentucky will play a return game at Winthrop early next season as part of the BracketBuster agreement.
