ASHEVILLE, N.C. – The seventh-seeded Wofford men's basketball team entered Monday night with the chance to be the first Southern Conference team in 81 years to win four straight games and win the SoCon tournament, but came up just short, falling to the No. 1 seed ETSU Bucs 72-58 at the Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville.
"I told them in the locker room that they are going to leave here as champions," Wofford head coach Jay McAuley said of seniors Nathan Hoover, Trevor Stumpe and Donovan Theme-Love. "They've won a lot of ball games for our program and represented their school with class, and they'll be champions for the rest of their lives."
Junior forward Chevez Goodwin was named to the All-SoCon Tournament first team, with guard Storm Murphy being named all-tournament second team. Wofford's record moves to 19-16 overall, with ETSU improving to 30-4 on the season and advancing to the 2020 NCAA Tournament.
"Congrats to ETSU, their staff, their players," McAuley said. "They've had a heck of a season and I'll say this, there's a good chance they'll be playing for quite some time in that tournament."
As a team, Wofford set a new tournament record, knocking down 42 threes in four games, breaking Western Carolina's four-game mark of 38 in 2012. The Terriers shot 43.4 percent from the floor and committed just 11 turnovers, but shot just 24 percent from 3-point range, with ETSU going 9-for-21 (42.9 percent) from behind the arc.
"Really proud of our team, I thought they gave everything they had here in Asheville," said McAuley. "Kind of ran out of gas there late…but really proud of this team, and we've got nothing to be ashamed of. We've got a good team, had a heck of a weekend, and I know this, we'll be back."
Goodwin led Wofford with 18 points, grabbing five rebounds while going a perfect 8-for-8 from the floor. Tray Hollowell added 13 points off the bench, with Murphy scoring nine and dishing out five assists.
"Hats off to ETSU for a great season and great game. I think us three have experienced both sides of this," Murphy said of himself, Goodwin and Hollowell. "We came in thinking we're the defending champs and yes, we had some rough patches this year but we were going to bounce back and play through that, and I'm really of our team for how we did getting here."
ETSU was hot right from the start, hitting three 3-pointers and getting a bucket from Bo Hodges as it raced out to an 11-2 lead. After a Jay McAuley timeout, the Terriers responded in a big way, with Storm hitting a three, feeding Goodwin before Messiah Jones and Ryan Larson scored to knot the game up at 11-11.
After the Bucs went in front by six, Wofford charged back, taking its first lead at the 9:41 mark when Hollowell knocked down a 3-pointer. Nathan Hoover hit a pair of free throws and Murphy found Jones as the Terriers extended their lead to five. ETSU's Tray Boyd led the Bucs back, tying the game at 26-26 after a three from Patrick Good, doubling up Wofford from here to go into the break leading by five.
The back-and-forth play continued to open up the second half, with ETSU stretching its lead to six with just over 13 minutes to play. The Bucs would get 3-pointers from Joe Hugley and Good to make the score 54-42 at the midway point of the half.
Despite Goodwin's best efforts down the stretch, ETSU would keep the Terriers at bay, getting buckets from Isaiah Tisdale, who had a game-high 24 points, Jeromy Rodriguez and Bo Hodges to close the game out and punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
"I just think it speaks to the toughness and character of our bunch," McAuley said of his team. "There's adversity with every team in every season. Not to say we are perfect, we didn't deal with it at times, but I know this weekend we responded to every challenge. I don't want people to think about that second half like we didn't respond. We gave everything we had and it just didn't go our way."
