Winthrop Eagles

The Winthrop Eagles represent Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, playing home games at Winthrop Coliseum just south of Charlotte. As the winningest program in Big South Conference history, the Eagles carry themselves with the swagger of a proven mid-major power, having built a genuine national reputation during their 2000s heyday. Winthrop basketball is the standard-bearer of the conference — the program every other Big South school is chasing.

A founding member of the Big South in 1983, Winthrop has won 12 regular-season conference titles and a conference-record 13 tournament championships (1998-2002, 2005-2008, 2010, 2017, 2020, 2021), reaching the NCAA Tournament 11 times. From 1998 to 2008 the Eagles went 216-95 overall, and on March 16, 2007 they delivered the program's signature moment: a 74-64 upset of Notre Dame, the first NCAA Tournament win by any Big South team. That golden era cemented Winthrop as the conference's benchmark program.