RICHMOND, Va. – The end result undoubtedly isn’t what Wofford hoped for in coming to the Holiday on the Hardwood Classic. Losing to VCU, the host team, was one thing, but losing to a Cornell team that had lost seven straight and in the fashion they did left head coach Mike Young with a simple way of summing up what the two nights in Richmond told him.
“Not the way we wanted to go into league play, but that’s where we are,” said the veteran Wofford mentor after the 86-80 loss to the Big Red. “We have a good basketball team. We’ve got to get on the stick here.”
Wofford has lost eight games this season, but Cornell is the first one that has come against a team with a sub-.500 record. The only home loss was to Air Force, which has an 8-4 record after losing at UTEP on Wednesday. They have lost at Minnesota, Clemson, Xavier, South Carolina and VCU, as well as to Georgetown on a neutral floor in the Charleston Classic. The loss to Air Force came in overtime, and against Xavier they nearly won twice before dropping it in triple overtime.
The Terriers are a veteran group that won 26 games last season and went to the NCAA Tournament as Southern Conference champions. Much of that team returns, so one would certainly figure they should be in the mix again and perhaps break through in non-conference against one or two of the better teams they had on a challenging slate. The non-conference run has been a mixed bag thus far, with the 5-8 record as a result of a number of tough losses.
As tough as Wednesday night’s loss to VCU was, they had their chances. A jumper by Jamar Diggs got them within three with 50 seconds left, and then they got a loose ball foul on VCU. Steady senior Cameron Rundles had two free throws, but missed both, and VCU went on to put the game away as the Terriers missed their last four shots from the field as well as the free throws.
For a veteran team, the close losses are usually a little easier to overcome, and Young certainly was feeling along those lines after Wednesday’s loss to VCU.
“I think we’re really close,” Young said. “I refer to it as the cookie jar: if you stick your hand in the cookie jar one too many times and get your ears pinned back, one could lead to another one. Not with this bunch. I know that we’re banging on the door going into league play next week.”
But Thursday’s consolation game shed light on the biggest concern Young has with this group: defense. Cornell made 27 of their first 33 shots, an astounding clip, and at one point was 14-17 from three-point range for the game. Some credit has to go to the Big Red, but the Terriers came into the tournament allowing opponents to shoot over 46 percent from the field, so although this was isolated from the pure number standpoint, it wasn’t isolated entirely.
“We should have a very good defensive team with many of the same players back from a year ago, but whether it be Georgetown, VCU, Clemson, Cornell, we are giving up an awfully high field goal percentage defense,” Young said. “We’ve got to get back to square one there, and we’ve got six days to do it.”
Where it counts, the Terriers are 2-0 in Southern Conference games played in early December. The Terriers are one of the favorites there, along with College of Charleston and Appalachian State. They will get an early test of where they are as they take on the Citadel and College of Charleston. Both games are at home, so they have a clear opportunity to start off 4-0 in Southern Conference play. Getting off to that kind of start can make a big difference for a team, as it’s certainly better than starting off 0-4 and having to play from behind in the standings.
Young feels like his veteran group will come back from this. He knows they have no choice, and with five seniors and five juniors there’s enough experience to do that. He also has plenty of confidence in this group, and considering what they accomplished last season and that they aren’t far away, there is reason for it.
