Radford University’s Christian Bradford had 11 points in Saturday’s loss to Winthrop.
In a frantic game that included 40 combined turnovers, the red-hot shooting Winthrop Eagles downed the Radford University men’s basketball team in a 57-75 loss at Winthrop Coliseum on Saturday.
The Highlanders turned the ball over a season-high 20 times, marking the first time they’ve committed 20+ turnovers in a game since Jan. 14, 2017 against Gardner-Webb. The sloppy play did result in a season-high 16 steals, but Radford is now 0-3 when recording double-digit steals this season.
With the loss, Radford drops to 15-10 including an 8-4 record in Big South play while Winthrop moves to 14-9 overall and ties the Highlanders at 8-4 against conference opponents.
Winthrop shot a blazing 56.5% (26-for-46) from the field including a 50% (9-for-18) clip from three-point range despite beginning the game 0-for-5 from behind the arc. Senior Xavier Cooks was the catalyst, tallying 22 points, six rebounds, five blocks, four assists and three steals.
Junior forward Ed Polite Jr. was a bright spot for Radford, scoring 18 points despite only six of his 15 shot attempts connecting. He added a game-high eight rebounds, a season-high five steals and hit three 3-pointers for only the second time in his career.
Senior guard Christian Bradford had a strong game as well, scoring 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting including two threes. His four steals set a new career high, doubling his previous-best of two.
Not much went Radford’s way in the first half as nine fouls and 12 turnovers made it that much tougher to hang with the defending Big South champions.
The Highlanders and Eagles exchanged baskets for the initial five minutes of play before a 7-5 Radford lead became a 7-11 deficit. More than five minutes would go by before Radford scored another field goal. Even still, defense kept the game close.
An old-fashion three-point play by Polite Jr. followed by a three from sophomore guard Travis Fields Jr. at the 9:55 mark even put the Highlanders ahead, 14-13. From there Winthrop would take over, however, ending the half on a 23-9 run to take a 36-25 lead into halftime.
Things improved in the second half as shots started to fall for a Highlander team that began the period 6-for-6 from the field. A 36.0% performance in the first half improved to 43.3% in the second half.
There was no stopping the Eagles though. They shot 58.3% in the half to maintain their lofty lead which never got below nine points in the period.
Bjorn Broman was near-perfect for Winthrop, dropping 16 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the floor, 3-of-4 from three and 5-of-5 from the charity stripe. Josh Ferguson went 4-for-6 to join Cooks and Broman in double figures with 10.
The all-time series between these two Big South rivals gets even tighter now. Through 73 games, Radford now leads by one at 37-36. The Highlanders drop to 5-9 in road games after losing four of the last five while Winthrop improves to 9-2 at home this season.
Winthrop went 14-for-17 from the free throw line while Radford went 5-for-9.
Polite Jr. is now needs only 11 more points to become the 26th player in program history with 1,000 for his career. He would also become the third in program history and ninth in Big South history to record 1,000 points, 500 rebounds, 100 steals, 100 blocks and 100 assists in a career.
Cooks scored 11 points total when Winthrop and Radford met back on Jan. 3. He had 12 points in the first half alone on Saturday. Junior guard Caleb Tanner went 1-for-2 from 3-point range, giving him at least one three in 20 of 25 games this season.
Walk-on freshman guard Anias Saunders saw game action for the first time since Jan. 6 against UNC Asheville. Redshirt sophomore guard Devin Cooper hit his second 3-pointer of the season and first since Nov. 22, 2017 at Elon.
“The really took it to us today. We responded a little bit in the second half, but not nearly the way we wanted our guys to respond. Right from the beginning we failed to come out at the level we needed to be at to beat a good Winthrop team. We gave them confidence and they ran with it,” said Head Coach Mike Jones.
The Highlanders return to the Dedmon Center for a midweek battle with High Point at 7 p.m. tonight. Radford has defeated the Panthers once already this season, snagging a 78-76 overtime victory on a buzzer-beating jumper by Carlik Jones.
–RU Athletics
