Winthrop’s Chandler Vaudrin relishes being his team’s playmaker and looks forward to playing Villanova

Chandler Vaudrin knew he was ready to take that next step after his sophomore season at Walsh University, an NCAA Division II school near his home of Uniontown, Ohio. He wanted to take the leap to a Division I school with a goal of playing in the NCAA Tournament someday.

“I sat down with my family,” he said, “and it was like, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s not look back in 20 years and say, well, I wish we would have tried this or I wish we would have done this.’

“I’m in the business of betting on myself and I know the work that I put in, and it’s always going to pay off.”

In this case, betting on himself did pay off. After that sophomore year at Walsh where he averaged 15.5 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 7.5 assists with four triple-doubles, the most at any NCAA level, the 6-foot-7 Vaudrin chose to continue his career at Winthrop, a university of about 5,800 students in Rock Hill, S.C.

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After sitting out his first year as a transfer, Vaudrin led the Eagles to back-to-back Big South championships. After the pandemic shut the team out of the 2020 NCAAs, he and his teammates are ready for the bright lights and a first-round matchup Friday night against three-time national champion Villanova.

Vaudrin led the Eagles, averaging 12.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 6.9 assists. He posted three triple-doubles, the last one a 10-point, 12-rebound, 10-assist performance in a March 1 win over High Point. He’s not a high-volume shooter, averaging just 8.4 attempts per game, but he loves having the ball in his hands and making a play.

He learned that style growing up and watching his idol, LeBron James, who grew up about 20 minutes from where Vaudrin did.

“What inspired me about LeBron is, he’s going to go down as the all-time leading scorer in NBA history and he’s a pass-first player,” he said Tuesday in a Zoom call with reporters. “The way he got other players involved, the way he had the ability to take teams that maybe shouldn’t have gone as far as they did in the playoffs, and to make other players around him better, that’s what I always prided myself on.”

» READ MORE: Villanova searching for its ‘road vibe’ heading into NCAA Tournament

Another influence for Vaudrin was his older brother, Chaese, who so inspired him that he learned to shoot left-handed like he did.

“He obviously helped me get on the right path of working out,” he said. “When I was in middle school, a lot of the kids were going to the YMCA and chucking up halfcourt shots and playing football and talking to girls and trying to do whatever.

“My brother had me in the right mindset of, ‘Let’s start working out now, use these hours that we’re here to get better and then at the end you can play with your friends.’ So it would always be, ‘Hey Chandler, come and play five-on-five,’ and I would be like, ‘No I’ve got to get my workout in first.’”

Vaudrin is the conductor of Winthrop’s fast-paced offense that averages 79.5 points per game. The Eagles are No. 11 in adjusted tempo in the KenPom.com ratings, as compared to No. 320 for Villanova. Their coach, Pat Kelsey, said Tuesday that “the pressure that we put on the defense in the first five, six seconds of the shot clock is one of the core principles of our system.”

“Villanova is obviously really good and they have a Hall of Fame coach and they have some big-time players,” Vaudrin said. “We also understand that they have a slower pace and we play a little bit faster. As the floor general out there, we want to try and control the pace. If a team plays faster than us, we’ll play faster. So we understand the opponent we have, we respect them, and we’re excited to play them.”

Where he is now takes Vaudrin back to his days in the playground where he played “One Shining Moment,” the anthem of the tournament, in his head and voiced “the 3-2-1 countdown to the buzzer.”

“To now be in the situation to play in it on Friday, you definitely look back and look at your younger self and you’re like, ‘Wow, we’ve come to a good spot,’” he said. “But for us, we’re trying to advance. It’s not just about getting here. We really think we can win a lot of games, so our first one starts on Friday.”