Eagles Toppled At Home 66-63 By CSU In OT

ROCK HILL, SC–James Seegars sent the game into overtime with Charleston Southern’s only three-pointer of the game and the Buccaneers went on to defeat Winthrop 66-63 in overtime to end the nation’s second longest home conference winning streak at 23 games.

Charleston Southern outscored Winthrop 9-2 in the final one minute, and 35 seconds of regulation to tie the game at 59-59 when Seegars, who finished with a game-high 13 points, hit a 20-footer from the right wing with four-tenths of a second left.

The win improves Charleston Southern to 3-3 in Big South play and 7-11 overall while Winthrop drops to 3-2 and 8-9. Winthrop was led in scoring by Tywan Harris with 12 while Tyrone Walker scored 11 and pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds.

The Bucs got its chance for the tying basket when the Eagles turned the ball over with 16 seconds left. Winthrop had its chances to put the game away in regulation, but Tyrone Walker’s dunk attempt with 49 seconds left came back up through the basket after appearing to have gone through, and he then missed two free throws with 36 seconds remaining that would have given the Eagles a four-point lead. CSU’s Charles White made two free throws after being fouled while rebounding Walker’s second miss to cut the Winthrop lead to 57-56. Pierre Wooten gave the Eagles a 59-56 lead when he converted on two free throws with 31 seconds left.

Nikola Pejovic put CSU ahead 60-59 with 4:16 left in overtime with one of two free throws and then gave his team a 62-59 lead on a short jumper in the lane at the 2:07 mark. Walker’s two free throws with 1:47 cut the deficit to one point, but Kevin Warzynski hit a baseline jumper 22 seconds later to put the Bucs back ahead by three at 64-61. Alex English, Jr., connected on a running jumper for the Eagles to make it 64-63 with just over a minute left.