Pine Bluff wins by 17 in opener

Associated Press

DAYTON

Smiling Arkansas-Pine Bluff players plopped into the black folding chairs at courtside and checked their cell phones for congratulatory messages before heading out the arena door to get on yet another bus.

Finally, the Golden Lions had found a road trip to their liking.

Allen Smith scored 14 points Tuesday night, including a pair of 3-pointers during the Golden Lions’ second-half surge to a 61-44 victory over Winthrop in the NCAA tournament’s opening game.

The Golden Lions (18-15) will play Duke, the No. 1 seed in the South Regional, on Friday in Jacksonville, Fla. — a place they somehow missed during a season-opening jaunt that nearly did them in.

“It seems like we play better on the road than we do at home because we’re so used to being on the road,” said center Lebaron Weathers said. “

Didn’t feel that way at the start of the season.

The Golden Eagles spent the first two months playing some of the country’s best teams on the road, going everywhere and getting nowhere. They dropped their first 11 games — all on the road — losing at schools such as Texas-El Paso, Michigan, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Kansas State and Oregon.

The fast exit was familiar for Winthrop (19-14), which has made the tournament nine times in the last 12 years but has only one victory in all those tries.

Winthrop got the type of game it wanted, but couldn’t make a shot as another tournament slipped away. Charles Corbin scored 13 points for the Eagles, who shot 29 percent from the field and went 2 of 21 behind the 3-point arc.

“We picked a bad time to have a bad game,” coach Randy Peele said.