Winthrop tops High Point to at least finish 2nd in Big South

Mar 1, 2020, 03:09 am

ROCK HILL, S.C. -- Hunter Hale scored 22 points and Chandler Vaudrin distributed a career-high 15 assists and Winthrop beat High Point 84-76 on Saturday to clinch a share of the Big South Conference regular season championship.

John-Michael Wright had 24 points and six rebounds for the Panthers (9-22, 6-12).

Later in the day, third-place Gardner-Webb pulled a surprise and beat Radford (20-10, 15-3) who entered the day a game up on Winthrop (21-10, 15-3).

Despite Saturday's results, Radford earned the top seed to the Big South Conference Tournament after league officials conducted tiebreaker scenarios. Radford and Winford split their season series, and the two split their respective series against third-place Gardner-Webb. They were both undefeated against fourth-place Longwood, leaving the fifth-place tie breaker between Hampton and UNC Asheville as the determining factor. Radford had a 3-1 mark against those two schools while Winthrop went 2-1 against the pair

It's the conference's fifth time with co-champions in the past six seasons.

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