CHARLOTTE, N.C. – ESPNU has selected the Winthrop at Radford men’s basketball contest as its fourth Big South Wildcard broadcast of the 2023-24 season, the Big South Conference office announced.
The game will move from its current Wednesday, Feb. 14 date to Thursday, Feb. 15 and will tip at 8 p.m. inside the Dedmon Center in Radford.
Winthrop defeated Radford in triple-overtime, 92-88, in the first meeting of the season back on Jan. 13. The Feb. 15 match-up will mark the squad’s first all-time “Wildcard” meeting on ESPNU, as well as each program’s second appearance on the network this season.
Winthrop is 14-9 overall and 5-3 in the Big South following the first half of the 16-game conference season. The Eagles rank second in league games with their 79.1 scoring average, as well as second in field goal percentage (49.2) and field goal defense (43.6) and are tops in three-point defense at 28.4 percent allowed. Kelton Talford is among the leaders with 18.0 points, 6.4 rebounds and a 66.7 field goal clip in Big South games. Radford, which is 3-5 at the conference’s midway point and 13-10 overall, has suffered three of its five league losses by single digits. The Highlanders ranked first in Big South games in three-pointers made per contest and are second in scoring defense. Individually, DaQuan Smith – who has made two game-winning buzzer-beaters this season (West Virginia and USC Upstate) – is averaging 15.8 points vs. league foes.
This is the 11th year of the Big South’s ESPNU Wildcard series, which again features six Thursday broadcasts – Jan. 11 (Radford 69, at Longwood 58), Jan. 18 (UNC Asheville 82, at Winthrop 77), Feb. 1 (Longwood at High Point), Feb. 15 (Winthrop at Radford), Feb. 22 and Feb. 29 – that are selected 14-21 days in advance. A total of 49 games have been played in the series that began in 2013-14, and while the home teams are 31-18, the 49 contests have been decided by an average of 9.24 points, with 29 (59.1 percent) of those being decided by single digits.
Big South Conference