GREENVILLE, S.C. – Furman senior Stephen Croone scored a tip-in at the buzzer and the Wofford men's basketball team fell to the Paladins, 63-62, Saturday evening at Timmons Arena.
 
Trailing by a point, Wofford took the lead with 6.9 seconds left on a layup by senior C.J. Neumann. Furman in-bounded the ball on the ensuing possession from under its own basket. Devin Sibley drove the length of the floor and put up a contested layup inside that rimmed off, but Croone was there for the follow up. He used his right hand to tip the ball back up from the right side of the basket moments before the final horn sounded and Furman defeated the Terriers for the first time since 2013.
 
"The cardinal rule in situations like that is you can't let the second one beat you, and we let the second one beat us," said head coach Mike Young in his postgame radio interview. "But it was a heck of a game. I'm proud of my team. We're banging on the door here, and now we've got to bust that door down and win these games."
 
Wofford (8-12, 4-3 SoCon) took a 60-52 lead off a 3-pointer from freshman Fletcher Magee with 4 minutes to play. Furman (10-10, 4-3 SoCon) went on a 9-0 run to take the lead, getting seven of those points from Croone. His 3-pointer with a minute left cut Wofford's lead to 60-59. Croone completed the run and gave the Paladins the lead by making two free throws with 25 seconds to go. He finished with a team-high 17 points.
 
Wofford senior Spencer Collins led all scorers with 19 points, hitting four 3-pointers in the first half alone. Junior point guard Eric Garcia scored a dozen on 5-of-8 shooting and also tallied a game-high five assists. Senior C.J. Neumann brought down a team-high six rebounds.
 
Kris Acox scored 11 points and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds for Furman. Sibley rounded out a trio of Paladins in double figures with 11.
 
The Terriers shot 50 percent in the first half limited Furman to 33.3 percent to go into the locker rooms with a 30-27 advantage. The Paladins responded by shooting 63 percent in the second half and finished the game with a slight shooting advantage of 45 percent to Wofford's 42 percent.
 
The opening 20 minutes saw numerous momentum shifts. Furman scored the first six points to get a crowd of 2,252 at Timmons Arena energized, but Wofford responded with the next six to tie things back up.
 
A 13-0 Furman run followed that gave the Paladins their largest lead of the game. Acox got it going with a tip-in dunk and Kendrec Ferrara did the same to make it 19-6 with 8 minutes gone by.
 
Garcia put an end to Furman's run by collecting his own rebound off a missed 3-pointer and connecting from 12 feet on his second chance. Collins got hot, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers on his way to eight straight points. His jumper with 8:25 to go in the half closed a 12-0 Wofford run, cutting Furman's lead to 19-18.
 
Furman pushed its lead back to seven points with 5:25 before the half, but it was all Wofford the rest of the way. Two more 3-pointers from Collins sandwiched around a layup by Sawvell pulled Wofford in front for the first time, 28-27. Sawvell was good for two more free throws before halftime to give the Terriers a 3-point lead.
 
Wofford outscored Furman 10-0 over the final 5:25 of the first half.  The Paladins shot 0-for-8 during that stretch. Collins led all scorers with 14 points and a 4-for-5 mark from 3-point range at the break.
 
The second half was a nail biter the whole way. Wofford led the majority of it, withstanding run after run from the Paladins, but never surrendering the lead. A Garcia 3-pointer pushed Wofford ahead by its largest margin at the time, 50-45, with 8:12 remaining. Furman chopped it down to a single point, but an 8-1 run with five straight points from Magee put the Terriers in front by eight in the game's final minutes.
 
Croone led the final charge that ultimately won it for Furman.
 
The Terriers return to Spartanburg for their next two games, welcoming ETSU to Benjamin Johnson Arena on Thursday and Western Carolina on Saturday. Both games tip at 7 p.m.

Terrier Notes:
- Wofford's six-game winning streak against Furman came to an end.
- It was Wofford's first loss of the season when outrebounding the opponent.
- Eric Garcia scored in double figures for the fourth straight game. Spencer Collins did so for the eighth straight game.
- Garcia marked his 15th career 5-assist game. He has 21 assists and just 2 turnovers over his last three games combined.
- Spencer Collins passed Don Fowler (1953-57) for 12th on Wofford's all-time scoring list. Collins now has 1,536 career points.
- Freshman Trevor Stumpe recorded his first two collegiate steals.