WSU, Winthrop similar
PULLMAN – When he saw his school’s name appear on the NCAA tournament bracket Sunday, Winthrop coach Randy Peele quickly looked at the line immediately above the Eagles.
Washington State.
“Quite honestly, I thought it was a great draw – initially,” Winthrop’s first-year coach said on his radio show Monday.
Then he watched tape of the 21st-ranked Cougars. And now he’s not so sure.
“They’re good,” Peele said. “What I’ve really started to pay attention to is they are a very possession-conscious team. … They’re opponents have 100 more turnovers than they do and at the same time, they have 100 more assists than their opponents.
“They can pass and they know how to play. We’re going to have to have defensive discipline because of their discipline on the offensive end.”
Though Peele was a little off with the numbers (WSU has 97 less turnovers and 106 more assists), his sentiment is clear. The Cougars are better than he thought.
Especially on the defensive end.
“Boy, they’re defense is very good,” Peele said. “They do a great job of getting ball-side, of having five guys defend three. I like to watch them, to be honest with you.”
Maybe because they remind him of someone.
“To be quite honest with you, us and Washington State are so similar, it’s unbelievable,” Peele said. “We basically are playing ourselves, with (the exception being WSU has) two 6-foot-10 post players.
“(But) both of us are teams, quite honestly, our style of play is you’re going to get one shot, so you better make it.”
The Eagles, who finished tied with North Carolina-Asheville for the Big South Conference title at 10-4, are no strangers to tough opponents. They’ve appeared in seven NCAA tournaments, including 2005, when they lost in the first round to Gonzaga, 74-64; 2006, when they lost to Tennessee by a point; and last year, when they were in Spokane.
That’s the site of Winthrop’s lone NCAA win, a 74-64 upset of Notre Dame. That’s an experience Peele believes will carry over to Thursday.
“I think it does,” he said when asked if the win helps this year, “because … you have to know you’re good in order to win. You have to expect to win. Our guys, going into this game, we’re confident. We know we’re playing a good team, no disrespect to them, they are a very, very good team, but I think our guys are confident.”
“I’m very impressed,” said WSU coach Tony Bennett on Monday after watching film of the Eagles. “Four NCAA tournaments in a row, those kids have been there and done it.
“They are very quick, extreme quickness, and very sound defensively. They run good sets, push it in transition, just very solid. I was impressed.”
But this isn’t the same Winthrop team that upset the Irish, lost in the second round to Oregon and finished last season 29-5, ranked 22nd in the nation – the only time the Eagles have finished a season ranked.
The Eagles lost three of their top four scorers, including their two best long-range shooters, Torrell Martin and Craig Bradshaw. They also lost coach Gregg Marshall to Wichita State. And they lost reserve guard De’Andre Adams, killed in a single-car accident May 16, 2007, near his hometown of Austell, Ga.
Adams may be familiar to Spokane fans because a picture of him jumping for joy during the Eagles’ upset of Notre Dame appeared in The Spokesman-Review. The backup point guard’s number, 24, was retired before the season.
“Is his loss something the players talk about everyday? No,” Peele said before the season. “But is it something that is there in everybody’s heart? Yes.”
None of the losses hurt as much as Adams’, but the Eagles have carried on, rallying in the Big South tournament to defeat Asheville in the final – they had lost to the Bulldogs twice during the regular season – and win the conference’s automatic berth.
They did it in large part because leading scorer Michael Jenkins, a 6-3 senior guard, returned, as did forward Taj McCullough and point guard Chris Gaynor. That trio of seniors, who have been to three NCAA tournaments, comprise the core of the Eagles’ success – and any success they’ll have in Denver.
“That’s huge,” Peele said of the seniors’ experience. “I know they aren’t afraid of it. They’re just excited about it. The thing I’m trying to get them to understand, and they’re starting to see, is that your ability to execute right now is really important, especially offensively.”
And that’s what scares Peele about the Cougars. He’s not sure the Eagles’ front line, which consists of the 6-7 McCullough (11.5 points), 6-7 Charles Corbin (6.7) and 6-5 defensive specialist Mantoris Robinson (6.0), can score over the Cougars’ two 6-10 posts, Aron Baynes and Robbie Cowgill, and 6-6 Kyle Weaver.
But it’s Jenkins, who averages 14.3 points a game and has converted 37.6 percent of his 197 3-point shots, Peele considers key. Though he had 33 in the Big South title game, he was shut down against High Point and Davidson, scoring 2 and 10 points, respectively, as Winthrop lost both.
“They have a few guys who can really get it going,” Bennett said, mentioning Jenkins’ performance against Asheville. “There’s a reason why they’ve been dominate and one of the best mid-majors in the country. They’re well-coached. They are disciplined but have the athleticism to get after it.”
“That’s a good question,” Peele said when asked where the offense would come from if Weaver shut down Jenkins. “It’s probably why we’re 22-11 and not 28-5, you know what I mean? I will tell you this … the ability to score is by far our biggest concern as a coaching staff.”
The Eagles average 65.6 points a game, though they scored just 54 points in a tournament loss to Baylor, 56 and 50 in their two Asheville losses, and 49 in a defeat at Coastal Carolina. The Cougars yield an average of 57.1 points a game, third-best among NCAA Division I teams.
“What they do better than anything else is, when the ball goes inside, my concern is can we score out of our sets,” Peele said. “If you put it on the floor, you’re going to have a hard time getting the ball to come back up off the dribble.
“They are a Big Ten-style team playing in the Pac-10.”