ESPNU Selects UNC Asheville at Winthrop as Jan. 18 Wildcard Game
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – ESPNU has selected the
UNC Asheville at Winthrop men’s basketball contest as its second Big South Wildcard broadcast of the 2023-24 season, it was announced today by the Big South Conference office. The game will move from its current Wednesday, Jan. 17 date to Thursday, Jan. 18 and will tip at 7:00pm inside the Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill, S.C.
The match-up will mark the seventh all-time “Wildcard” meeting between the squads on ESPNU. Winthrop has won four of the previous six matchups, and will make its 18th appearance in the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series (13-4 record). UNC Asheville has appeared 17 times previously, including three times last year during its Big South Championship run.
UNC Asheville (9-7, 1-0 Big South) won its conference opener on Wednesday over USC Upstate, 95-67. In the game, Big South Preseason Player of the Year and Karl Malone Award candidate
Drew Pember scored a game-high 22 points, grabbed nine rebounds, had five assists and was 11-of-11 from the free throw line. During the contest he became just the fourth player in Big South history to have 1,500 career points (1,505), 600 rebounds (631) and 200 blocked shots (202). Pember leads the conference in scoring with 18.9 points per game, while the Bulldogs are second in scoring offense (82.5 points), three-point percentage (36.8) and three-pointers per game (8.8).
Winthrop (9-7, 1-0 Big South) defeated Longwood in overtime on Wednesday, 68-60, behind 15 points each from
Kelton Talford,
Nick Johnson and
Kasen Harrison. The Eagles are one of four Big South squads to have four players scoring in double figures, led by
K.J. Doucet’s 13.4 per game average. Talford is a member of the Big South’s 1,000-point, 500-rebound club with current career totals of 1,079 points and 559 boards. Winthrop is tops in the league in field goal defense and three-point defense, and leads the all-time series with Asheville, 48-38.
This is the 11th year of the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series, which again features six Thursday broadcasts –- Jan. 11 (Radford at Longwood), Jan. 18 (UNC Asheville at Winthrop), Feb. 1, Feb. 15, Feb. 22 and Feb. 29 -- that are selected 14-21 days in advance. A total of 47 games have been played in the series that began in 2013-14, and while the home teams are 31-16, the 47 contests have been decided by an average of 9.30 points, with 28 59.6 percent) of those being decided by single-digits.