ByWillAtkinson.com

This was a piece I did on the Winthrop men’s basketball team. I caught them hanging out in our student gym and thought it would make an interesting feature. You be the judge:

Gone are the 20,000 screaming basketball fans. Gone are the ESPN pundits and cameras. The upset predictions proved wrong for the sixth time in eight years.

Winthrop Head Coach Gregg Marshall is no longer sobbing into a towel. Bruce Pearl, Tennessee’s head coach, is home in Knoxville after losing to Wichita State. His solar-powered orange blazer, suspenders and tie are going to get some closet time this summer.

It was the one that got away, the Hail Mary shot that somehow slipped past Torrell Martin’s fingers into the meshed netting waiting below, the over-rated team with the over-heated coach, etc., etc.

Tennessee’s Chris Lofton launched a twisting, fading, turning prayer from 19 feet.

With 0.4 seconds on the clock, it was over. There would be no overtime, no win and no surprise.

The Eagles are picking up the pieces.

“I got net, I got net,” senior forward Otis Daniels said.

He’s talking trash after sinking the winning shot in a pickup basketball game. Daniels and other Eagles are spending a cold, stormy Monday night sparring other Winthrop students in Peabody gym.

“Nothing can prepare you for what happened,” Daniels said. “I’ve got a plan for the future. I’m trying to play ball with these knees until they run out.”

Daniels will graduate in August after completing an internship. He’s in the same class as former teammate Billy Houston, who quit earlier in the semester so he could graduate in May.

The senior sport management senior said he has sport agents interested in representing in Australia, New Zealand or Europe.

Michael Jenkins, the 6-foot-3-inch sophomore guard, is draining shots. He’s put the Tennessee game behind him.

“It’s all over now. We gotta build for next year,” Jenkins said. “We played our hearts out.”

The sophomore sport management sophomore will stay in Rock Hill this summer to keep in shape and work.

Several Eagle wannabes and hopefuls idly dribble courtside. They hoot and holler at sophomore point guard Christ Gaynor. Gaynor gives his trademark smile and sinks a three-pointer with ease.

Gaynor, the 5-foot-10-inch mass communication major, can’t believe Lofton’s shot sunk.

“It was a miracle shot. We feel like we should still be playing,” Gaynor said. “To lose on a crazy shot like that after preparing all year is hard. Some say [Lofton] traveled.”

Gaynor plans on working out and working a mall job this summer. He says he is undefeated in Peabody gym.

Kyle Neeley, a 19-year-old math major, tried his best against the Eagles.

How’d he compete?

“Not so good but it’s fun and it raises the level of competition [at Peabody],” Neeley said.

He watched the Tennessee heartbreaker.

“We played well enough to win,” Neeley said. “It was fun to see a small school like Winthrop hang in with a big school like Tennessee.”

On Selection Sunday before the big game, Marshall said, “Time to pull a Rocky.”

It didn’t go down like the movie. It came close but Apollo Creed, Mr. T and the Russians continue to have the last laugh.