Eagles hire Kelsey as New Men's Basketball Coach

Winthrop made a splash on Thursday by naming Pat Kelsey as its new head coach. Kelsey was considered a rising star in the coaching ranks before stepping down as Xavier’s Associate Head Coach last season to spend more time with his family.

Only 35 years old, the former Wake Forest assistant saw first-hand what happened to Skip Prosser and no doubt saw what Urban Myer was going through. Now a year later, Kelsey feels he is ready to get back into coaching and what better a place than Winthrop?

Kelsey was known as a high-energy guy and certainly that is something that Winthrop fans have been wanting ever since Gregg Marshall left to go to Wichita State. It is curious that a day after Coach Marshall was named to the Big South Hall of Fame that Winthrop would name an energetic up and comer in the coaching profession.

He is known for a fast paced offense and a strong emphasis on defense. He also earned a reputation as an innovative marketer during his time at Wake Forest. He worked with current XU head coach and former Wake assistant Chris Mack and Wake marketing to produce the "Tie-Dye Nation" campaign, which still thrives today as the heartbeat of the Wake Forest fan base.

Kelsey is just the sixth head men’s basketball coach in Winthrop history (The Eagles began men’s basketball in 1977) following Nield Gordon, Steve Vacendak, Dan Kenney, Marshall, and Randy Peele.

Eagle fans should be encouraged by this hire and expect a news conference sometime mid-next week to officially welcome their new coach.

Longwood Joins the Big South

The Big South officially welcomed the Longwood Lancers into the league last month bringing the current membership to an unprecedented 12 teams. Adding Longwood gives the league a very convenient four teams in each of its three states.

The Lancers have been a Division I independent for the last 4 1/2 years since moving up from Division II. Longwood has targeted Big South membership from the very beginning but it has taken the Big South some time to warm up to the Lancers. We can only assume the Big South was awaiting facility upgrades and proof of performance that Longwood would sustain at the DI level. With those questions now answered, adding the Lancers does make it a more balanced league (for how long is debatable).

What does it mean for Winthrop? It will make the Virginia trips a little easier, assuming your will make a VMI/Radford trip and a Liberty/Longwood trip. However, VMI doesn’t play volleyball or women’s basketball and Longwood does not play volleyball so for volleyball, no change at all, and Women’s hoops actually now has to make a second trip to Va. That it wouldn’t normally make.

Longwood will compete right away. The Lancers are very good in golf and soccer and historically have been competitive in women’s basketball and baseball. The real interesting question for the league is does the addition of Longwood mean that division play is right around the corner?

It is no surprise that the with the current 11 team lineup, the unbalanced schedule has upset a lot of coaches. Although it has worked in WU’s favor a couple of times, there are complaints that certain teams do not play the top teams and that is unfair for seeding purposes.

With division play, two-thirds of the league is broken up nicely into North and South. The Va. Schools to the North, the S.C. schools to the South, then it is just a matter of assigning the N.C. schools, the geography will not work out. If it were by geography Asheville and HPU are more Northern than GWU and Campbell, but those cannot be travel partners. So, although Asheville to the South and Campbell to the North or GWU to the North and HPU to the South would be a little strange, the travel partners have to stay together.

The next question is how many conference games do we play? Right now the number is 18 in Men’s basketball and 24 in Baseball. With divisions, MBB has to drop to 16 games (10 against your division, each team twice and 6 against the other division, each team once). Baseball to stay at 24 means you would play the teams in your division every year and then there would be three-teams in the other division you would not play.

It is all very interesting and I am sure the Big South brass will figure it out but for now, welcome Longwood and we will see you first on the soccer pitch in Fall 2012.

Eagles travel to High Point for Big Matchup

Coach speak says that all games count the same and that any conference game is by definition a “Big Game.” So, for the Eagles tonight’s game at High Point is no different than say the game at Gardner-Webb on Dec. 3. Coach Peele used the +1 analogy for road wins, -1 for home losses, and even for home wins and road losses. I would be interested to see how that plays out for a season. But my point is this. Tonight is a big game. It is far more important than the Dec. 3, game at Gardner-Webb and here is why.

On the Dec. 3, the Eagles were 1-0 in conference and coming off a win at PC. So splitting the opening trip was still considered a “good trip”. Today, the Eagles are 3-2 in the league and are playing well but beating Radford (0-5) and VMI (3-4) at home didn’t really give anyone a real read on the season. Winthrop is 0-4 at Millis Center under Coach Peele. High Point is 2-3 in the league and needs to win at home. A Winthrop loss, puts the Eagles back to .500 and says it is a middle of the pack team. A Winthrop win puts the Eagles at 4-2 heading into a winnable game in Lynchburg. The Eagles would jump into the top four in the league and set up a great stretch run with Asheville, Campbell, and Coastal Carolina.

This game tonight will go a long way to telling us if the Eagles are truly going to contend this season. You can’t be satisfied with winning at home and losing on the road and finishing at .500. Winthrop needs a “W” tonight and on Saturday and give the rest of the conference that, “Here comes Winthrop feeling” they felt for most of the decade.

New Year's Resolution

So, we have been a little slack on the ole Winthrop Eagle Blog but with the New Year comes new incentive. We have a new Social Media Clubhouse on winthropeagles.com and this blog is listed so hopefully that will be reason enough to do a little more blogging in the New Year.

We have a couple of other items to roll out this year. One is a new feature during basketball games and that will be the Live Chat . Now it doesn't sound like much but this could be a fun thing for people who can't make it to the game. Basically what will happen is someone from the media relations staff will be at the game just chatting it up with fans about what is going on in the game, around the team, or whatever.

So, be on the lookout always on Facebook and Twitter for new things to make your online viewing of Winthrop games a little more interactive. GO EAGLES!!!

Students Arrive and Season Begins on Friday

Freshman move-in day is tomorrow, Friday, Aug. 19. Once the newest Winthrop student’s get moved in they can head to Eagle Field and get their first glimpse of Winthrop Athletics when the Eagles face Georgia Southern in women’s soccer action at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on the Big South Network for fans who cannot attend in person.

Both soccer teams have played at least one exhibition match. The women have had two victories. A 2-0 win over Wofford and a 6-0 win at Catawba. It is good to see the ladies scoring goals which was an issue last season. Senior Courtney Durbin will be the main focus of the attack up front but freshman Krystyna Freda showed promise in the preseason. Freshman Grace Radler also has had productive minutes in the attack along with junior Allie VandeWater and senior Rachel Webster. The Eagles have always been strong in the back and with red-shirt senior Kelsey Weavil and junior Sarah Schippers sharing time in net this year should be no different.

The Men’s team dropped its home exhibition last night 2-0 to Charlotte and play at Clemson on Sunday. It looks like the goalkeeping that troubled the Eagles last season has been a point of emphisis. Both Enrique Miranda and Patrick Walsh made good saves holding the 49ers scoreless for the first hour of the match. Each goalkeeper played 30 minutes in the exhibition. The Eagles had problems moving forward as it was difficult to judge the attack against a formidable Charlotte squad. On Sunday, Winthrop may run into a similar problem against the Tigers but the Eagles will hopefully have a few more players as some guys had visa issues as international students.

The crowd last night for the men’s game was terrific for an exhibition game, hopefully a good crowd will make it out tomorrow for the season opener. Live stats for the game will be available at winthropeagles.com and of course the previously mentioned video stream at bigsouthsports.com.

Time to Get Started

I don’t know where the summer went but it is time to gear up for volleyball and soccer. There is a lot going on around campus over the next two weeks so if you are in or near Rock Hill stop by to see the excitement. Not only at the Coliseum Area where we will have six sporting events from now until Aug. 27. But also on campus, Welcome Week begins for the Student-body next week. Boyd Jones always brings in great acts for that. Classes begin on the 23rd.

The 2011-12 school year officially begins tonight with the women’s soccer exhibition against Wofford at 6 p.m. Although the match does not count in the standings it is a sign that summer is over. The full student body does not arrive for another week but with fall student-athletes and RA’s already on campus it is getting the feeling of starting up for real. Tonight’s exhibition will give us our first glimpse of the 2010Regular Season Big South Co-Champs. The Eagles were the top-seed in last year’s Big South Tournament. This season they are picked sixth which seems a little low to me but when you realize five teams tied for first last year it is hard to shuffle the deck. I think the Big South will be wide open again this year and multiple teams including Winthrop have a chance to be successful.

Tonight’s match begins a week of preseason action. The Men’s soccer team has its exhibition game on the 17th and volleyball plays its Garnet and Gold game on the 22nd. The first game that counts is next week, the 19th, when women’s soccer hosts Georgia Southern. That will be our first Big South Network game of the season.

2011 Volleyball Preview Part 2

Today, I finish out the Big South Preseason coaches’ poll with the teams picked 6-10. As luck would have it the coaches tied for sixth so my vote unofficially breaks the tie…

UNC Asheville and Charleston Southern were both picked sixth. The Bulldogs get my vote for one reason and one reason only. Cindi Miller. Miller is Asheville’s leading returning hitter and the only member of the All-Conference first team to return to school. The Bulldogs will be under the direction of first year head coach Frederico Santos who spent a number of years at Asheville as an assistant coach before beginning his head coaching career at the D2 level. Santos brings a laid back Brazilian philosophy to the conference which will be interesting. He has always been well liked by his players and will have some tricks but the main trick will be to get the ball to Miller. Unlike the rest of the league, Asheville needs its middle attack to be more productive. I expect Holly Shelton, now a junior, to be more of a force and Meredith Foster to continue her improvement. Alex Stewart was a nice surprise for the ‘Dogs last season. There is a question mark at setter, but Santos is a setting coach so I think that will get worked out pretty early on. The Bulldogs had arguably the best outside combo in the league last year, they have half that back, I expect them to be half as good. They move from third to sixth with Miller earning all-conference honors once again.

Graduation hit no team harder than Charleston Southern. Head Coach Danyel Bellush is one of my favorite people in the league but last year was their season to shine and it happened to be when the league was its best in years. The Bucs made the semifinal round behind Player of the Year Amanda Hill. Unfortunately, she and four of her teammates are gone leaving CSU with setter Amy Nokes and middle blocker Crissy Skokan as returning starters. Obviously the question is where does the offense come from? There is no way to replace Hill as a hitter or as a leader and let’s not forget about Cori Holeman and Amberle Trinder who helped CSU be near the top of the league in blocking. I fear it is going to take awhile for the Bucs to reload. Coach Bellush has eight sophomores on her roster lead by Kayla Klinger. She will have to grow up fast. CSU always plays well in the BucDome but they are going to struggle on the road with such a young team.

Another team hit hard by graduation is Presbyterian. The Blue Hose graduated six players including 1st team all-conference middle Amanda Kettles. The good news is that PC returns preseason all-conference outside hitter Presley Mabry along with Andrea Barman and Allison Brown. The Blue Hose will also be a young team as they have just one senior and she only played in nine matches last season. However with three returning contributors, PC is actually in a better spot than many teams. Chris Belshe continues to have his team compete but depth is still an issue. PC is a difficult team to call. I am going to put them ahead of CSU in seventh but not by much.

The good news for Radford is that the league is going to be down a little bit this season. So, for them to improve from two wins to five wins gives RU fans a hope that they may be able to move up. The bad news is for the second year in a row, it failed to hit over .160 as a team and Desiree Aramburu and Laura Waddell are no longer on the team. So, Carly Flemming and Megan McWhorter are really going to have to step up their games. Katelyn Meeks is an underrated libero who is a good primary passer but head coach Marci Jenkins will have to break in a new setter and have to find something on the outside. The bottom line for Radford is that it has to find kills. You can’t hit .160 and expect to win. At the end of the year look at the Highlanders attack percentage. If it is close to .200 they complete with PC, CSU, Campbell, and Asheville. If it’s under .170 they finish last.

Gardner-Webb is the only team in the league that returns all six starters from last season. In fact, it returns all 13 players from last season. The only thing GWU doesn’t return is its head coach. Leo Sayles begins his D1 coaching career with one of the more experienced teams in the league. The only problem is those returners went 5-27 and 0-16 in the conference last season. This is going to sound funny, but I don’t think GWU is that bad. Molly Rhyne is a good outside hitter, Laura Wilcox was Freshman of the Year what seems like forever ago, and Evan Moffitt although maybe not the best technical setter, competes hard. I honestly think this team can compete with the teams we are talking about today. Now I am still going to pick them ninth, because last year they quit on their head coach. So I am not sold on their toughness but if Coach Sayles can instill some pride the red and black and get them to play hard throughout the season especially on those tough road trips to Liberty, High Point, and Winthrop then GWU can surprise some people. Like a lot of teams in this league, GWU doesn’t play well on the road. They have to hang in, compete, and they can steal some matches. They can beat CSU, Radford, PC, and maybe Asheville at home. If they get to four wins in the conference this season, it still won’t be pretty but it will be a lot better than 0-16 and they will still bring back 10 players the following year. You have to start somewhere and for GWU start with winning at home and competing on the road.

So that is it. A team by team look at what I think will happen in the league. Like last year, we will review just before the conference tournament in Charleston. To recap here is what the coaches picked compared to how I pick them. There isn’t too much difference.

Coaches/ Me

1. Liberty/ 1. Liberty

2. High Point/ . tie High Point

3. Coastal Carolina/ 3. tie Winthrop

4. Winthrop/ 4. Coastal Carolina

5. Campbell/ 5. Campbell

6. tie Charleston Sou./ 6. UNC Asheville

7. tie UNC Asheville/ 7. Presbyterian

8. Presbyterian/ 8. Charleston Southern

9. Radford/ 9. Gardner-Webb

10. Gardner-Webb/ 10. Radford