In a rematch of last season’s thriller in Grand Forks, the North Dakota Fighting Hawks made the trek to Rock Hill to face the Winthrop Eagles. Both teams were chasing their first wins of the season after Winthrop fell in a close one to Queens and North Dakota fell against Minnesota.
Winthrop started much like they finished the Queens game, breaking out to an early 18-4 lead against North Dakota in just under 7 minutes, with former ND players Anthony Smith III and George Natsvlishvili both involved in the early flurry.
North Dakota kept chipping away, cutting the deficit to as low as four points in the first 10 minutes, but the Eagles extended it back to 10 points multiple times.
North Dakota finally made progress into Winthrop leads nearing the end of the half on an 11-4 run before two Anthony Smith III free throws extended the Eagles to three headed into halftime.
North Dakota’s momentum carried into the second half as, with 17:32 left, UND took the lead on an Andrjia Radojevic jumper and extended it to 5 before Winthrop answered with a George Natsvlishvili layup and a Kyle Morgan 3 to tie the game at 55 with 13:34 remaining.
Winthrop and UND would continue to trade blow for blow until UND cracked off a 6-0 run, forcing Mark Prosser to take a timeout with 10:08 remaining, which at the time gave North Dakota an eight-point lead, something they’d hold most of the time until around four minutes left when Winthrop was able to cut the lead to one after an Anthony Smith III and-1.
Winthrop took the lead on a Spence Sims 3-pointer late in the game when one of Winthrop’s assistant coaches went onto the court, earning a Class B technical. Something I think was overlooked is that Seifeldin Hendawy was likely going to be tech’d himself, so I don’t view that as a mistake but as a savvy moment: stopping a potential Class A tech while giving up a Class B.
North Dakota’s Winkel missed the technical free throw, but he would make up for it in the following possession, getting to the line and draining both of his shots at the line and then two more to extend ND’s lead to 3 after a botched play resulted in a Spence Sims turnover.
Winthrop’s final shot failed to find the bottom of the net, snapping both an 11-game home winning streak and a 9-game home opener winning streak.
Spence Sims led the Eagles with 26 points; Keshawn Fisher followed with 15 points in limited minutes due to foul trouble. George Natsvlishvili was limited to only 12 minutes due to foul trouble but still had 6 points on a perfect 3-for-3 from the field.
(Picture Credits to Reed and Gabe Uelmen and UND Athletics)