Wofford completed a run through the Southern Conference that will go down as one of the greatest in the ancient league’s history.
Meanwhile, UNC Greensboro will now wait.
The Southern Conference is stronger than it has been in many years, certainly the strongest it has been in its modern era, but Wofford capped a dominating run through the league with a 70-58 win over UNCG to cap the 99th edition of the SoCon tournament. The Terriers won their 20th straight game overall, their 21st without a loss to conference competition this year, and at 29-4 now should receive a very healthy seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The final score will deceive anyone who didn’t watch the game, for it ended with an incredible run by Wofford that showed once and for all how dangerous this team is.
UNC Greensboro, which has had an outstanding season but was hammered by Wofford twice this season by 30 and 29 points, owned a five-point lead with just over five minutes left in the game. The Spartans had held tenuous control almost the entire game and appeared to be in the driver’s seat down the stretch when the Terriers authored a stunning turnaround.
Wofford went on a 16-0 run in the final minutes, hitting big shots, getting stops and eventually frustrating UNCG into futility. A game that was tense and close for 37 minutes suddenly looked like a comfortable victory at the end, with the Terriers flawless at the end and the Spartans frustrated.
The Terriers showed just how well-rounded they are, winning in a game where the physicality was over-the-top and despite making just 3 of 16 from three-point range. Few are going to understand just what a complete and deep team this is, and it would be little surprise if Wofford gets on a run and wins several games in the NCAA Tournament.
UNC Greensboro will now wait to see if it can somehow sneak out an at-large bid to the NCAA tourney. The Spartans have a sparkling 28-6 record and are undefeated (24-0) against teams outside the top 41 in the NCAA’s NET. Their six losses have come against Wofford three times, Kentucky, LSU and Furman. Unfortunately for UNCG, only four of its wins have come against the top 100, and 16 have come against Quadrant 4. With the ever-increasing collusion in scheduling among the top conferences, one of the things killing teams like the Spartans is they are missing out on not just home opportunities against top-flight competition, but also have few opportunities in quads 2 and 3.
UNC Greensboro has 14 road/neutral wins, and it deserves to be noted that seven of their eight Quadrant 1 games were away from home. That’s a big contrast to a team like Indiana, which is 6-9 in Q1 games but played six of them at home. Both of those things deserve to be noted heavily over the next week.
On the other hand, the final impression against Wofford was not good, and in fact in four of its six losses, UNCG was beaten badly or finished poorly. Its 17-point loss at Kentucky saw the Wildcats finish the game on a 28-6 run after the Spartans had a 55-50 second-half lead…the same as they held Monday against Wofford.
The Southern Conference certainly is good enough this year to deserve at least two teams in the NCAA Tournament, if not three. It’s very possible that both UNC Greensboro and Furman did just enough to come up just short.
Wofford was one of two teams to wrap up an automatic berth Monday night. Also moving on was Iona, which won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference by pulling away in the second half for an 81-60 win over Monmouth.
The Gaels continued to make the MAAC tourney their own Iona Invitational as their incredible dominance continued, and senior guard Rickey McGill became the first player in conference history to be on four straight league champions. A season that opened with a 2-9 mark and saw Iona just 5-6 in conference a month ago still ended in another title for Tim Cluess, who will take the school to postseason for the ninth time in nine years, the NCAAs for the sixth time in eight years and the NCAAs or NIT for the eighth straight season.
Side Dishes:
- The West Coast Conference will come down to Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s again. The Bulldogs blew out Pepperdine as expected 100-74, while the Gaels got a stiff fight from San Diego and had to rally for a 69-62 win. SMC has been putting on a full-court press on social media lobbying for an NCAA at-large bid if needed; it’s probably going to take a win over Gonzaga for the auto bid to get it.
- The Colonial Athletic Association had a pair of outstanding semifinals in North Charleston. Top seed Hofstra needed overtime to eliminate Delaware 78-74, and it took a monster game from Justin Wright-Foreman, who scored 42 points. It sets up a much-anticipated third matchup against Northeastern, which topped defending champion and essentially the home team College of Charleston 70-67. The Huskies got 18 points off the bench from Shawn Occeus, a key player who has been in and out of the lineup all season with injuries.
- Northern Kentucky senior Drew McDonald has been one of the more underappreciated players in the country the past couple years, a versatile big man who has had a terrific career. McDonald added to his NKU legacy with a game-winning three-pointer with a game-winning three-pointer with 1.6 seconds left to lift the Norse to a 64-63 win over Oakland in the Horizon League semifinals. Also advancing was No. 1 seed Wright State, which handled Wisconsin-Green Bay 66-54 with Bill Wampler scoring 18 points off the bench.
- The run by 8 seed Western Illinois came up just short of the final in the Summit League. North Dakota State held on for a 76-73 win as the Leathernecks missed on a number of chances to tie in the final minutes. The Bison now will face Nebraska-Omaha, which edged Purdue Fort Wayne 61-60. Mitchell Hahn hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 3:13 left, and those were the final points of the game as neither scored the rest of the way.
- The Mid-American Conference opened with its opening round of games on campus sites. Home teams were successful with one exception: Ball State, which somehow slipped all the way down to the 11 seed, comfortably won at sixth-seeded Eastern Michigan 61-43, the end of a disappointing season for the Eagles.
- One game opened the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tourney. Delaware State topped Savannah State 71-67, ending the Tigers’ Division I run as SSU will move back down to NCAA Division II next year.
- Monday was a troubling day of coach firings. Among the coaches to get let go by their schools were Phil Cunningham at Troy, Bob Hoffman of Mercer and Fairfield’s Sydney Johnson. This brings us to our regular reminder this time of season that the ever-overstated line about coaches “always” jumping to higher jobs is far more fable than fact, and incidences like this of coaches fired or resigning under pressure happen exponentially more than head coaches moving to better positions. Cunningham (who stated eloquently why he felt he should’ve been retained) and Hoffman in particular both made trips to the NCAA Tournament-Troy was there just two years ago. Hoffman engineered the notable upset of Duke in 2014, his teams also won games in the NIT, CBI and CIT tourneys, and his biggest sin was his school moving to the Southern Conference right as it became a much more competitive basketball league. All three coaches were also known for class and caring about academics and their players. It becomes ever more clear by the day that the leaders of our colleges and universities really haven’t learned much from the FBI’s investigation into the sport.
- To little surprise, Ohio State and Texas announced that suspended players are returning for the postseason. The Buckeyes get Kaleb Wesson back, while the Longhorns will have Kerwin Roach return. One player who isn’t returning is Kansas guard Lagerald Vick, who it was announced will not return to the team this season.
- Also, a plug from Sunday late night, more Hoopville coverage from the MVC Tournament this weekend about Southern Illinois and Barry Hinson’s post-game resignation.
Today’s Menu:
- Five more automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament will be decided. Four of the five will feature the top two seeds meeting.
- The CAA final features Northeastern against Hofstra (7 p.m. Eastern, CBSSN). At the same time, Northern Kentucky will meet Wright State in an appealing Horizon final (7 p.m., ESPN) and the Northeast Conference championship has Fairleigh Dickinson against St. Francis (Pa.), with the Red Flash trying to halt a 28-year NCAA tourney absence.
- The WCC final will have Saint Mary’s against heavy favorite Gonzaga (9 p.m., ESPN). The only tourney final to not feature the top two seeds is the Summit League, where No. 4 North Dakota State takes on second-seeded Nebraska-Omaha (9 p.m., ESPN2). It’s a good time to remind that the last seven Summit titles have gone to South Dakota State or North Dakota State.
- The America East Playoffs (as they are called) is down to the semifinals. The teams are re-seeded and that’s a big deal after Binghamton stunned 2 seed Stony Brook in the quarterfinals. Top seed Vermont now will welcome Binghamton, while the other semi has No. 4 Hartford at 3 seed Maryland-Baltimore County.
- The SWAC quarterfinals open up. Top seed Prairie View A&M hosts No. 8 Alcorn State, while NO. 2 Texas Southern faces No. 7 Southern.
- The ACC’s seemingly week-long event begins today. Games include Wake Forest against Miami (Fla.) (Noon, ESPN), Notre Dame taking on Georgia Tech (2:30 p.m., ESPN) and former Big East rivals Pittsburgh and Boston College meeting (7 p.m., ESPNU).
- The Sun Belt tourney opens with a pair of play-in round games, with Appalachian State facing Louisiana-Monroe and Arkansas State against South Alabama.
- The MEAC continues its first round with two more games: South Carolina State against Maryland-Eastern Shore in the 8/9 game, plus 7 seed Coppin State meeting No. 10 Morgan State.
Enjoy your Tuesday.
Twitter: @HoopvilleAdam
