Wofford Men's Basketball Falls in Double Overtime to Western Carolina

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - In another very close matchup against Western Carolina, the Wofford College men's basketball team missed late opportunities as the Catamounts were able to get a 95-91 win in double overtime on Wednesday night at Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium.

The Terriers had a 72-62 lead with under five minutes left in regulation before the Catamounts tied things up with a 10-3 run. With a minute to go, Wofford had a three-point lead by a three-pointer tied the game and sent it to overtime. In the first overtime, Messiah Jones hit a shot with 23 seconds remaining to tie things up at 86-86. During the second overtime, the Catamounts hit 7-of-8 free throws for the 95-91 win.

Wofford (13-13, 5-8 SoCon) was led by senior B.J. Mack with 22 points to lead the team and he added nine rebounds which matched Messiah Jones for a team high. The Terriers had five players score in double figures, with Jones (13), Corey Tripp (16), Jackson Paveletzke (17) and Kyler Filewich (10) joining Mack.
Catamount senior Tre Jackson put up a career-high 41 points to lead Western Carolina (14-12, 7-6) as he went 8-15 from three and 11-11 from the free throw line. Senior Vonterius Woolbright also added 30 points for WCU including 10 of the Catamounts 15 points in the two overtime periods. Woolbright also added 13 rebounds to lead the game.

 "That was a tough double overtime game," said interim head coach Dwight Perry. "It was two really good teams that fought and they made one more play than we did unfortunately. But I'm really proud of the effort and the fight of our guys."
A strong start for Wofford helped them take a 21-10 lead early, but WCU was able to chip into that margin and cut it to only a five-point lead at the half.

In the second half the Terriers looked to be putting the game away as they led by 13 points with under seven minutes to play but the Catamounts wouldn't go away. They were able tie the game up three times in the final two minutes of regulation, lastly on a Jackson three with 50 seconds left that evened the game at 80. After defensive stops on both ends the game would go to overtime at 80 apiece.

The first overtime period was even all the way through as neither team was able to lead by more than two and Messiah Jones would even it up at 86 late in overtime.

In double overtime, strong defense led the Terriers to a four-point lead with under 90 seconds to play before free throws by Jackson and Woolbright evened the game at 90. Wofford retook the lead at 91-90 after Paveletzke made one of his two free throws, but Woolbright then gave WCU the lead on a contested layup.
An offensive turnover and a foul would lead to more free throws for WCU as they were able to get the final margin up to five at 96-91.
 
"There's been times when we have closed out games, like when we closed out at Chattanooga," said Perry. "We didn't close it out tonight, and the reality is as we know in basketball everyone looks to the last play or the last two plays and they think that's what lose the game. The reality is there's plays that lead up to that, when you are up three giving up threes, when your up four and turn the ball over. There's never one play or one person to blame for a loss like this, it's a culmination of different things We can't let this loss chip away at us continuing to get better. We got better today. We didn't win and nobody wants to win more than the guys in that locker room, but I'm proud of the group and the steps we're taking."

The Terriers will look to move past this defeat as they head to conference co-leaders UNC Greensboro on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m.
Quick Hits

• Western Carolina won the rebounding battle 42-41 over Wofford.
• Wofford went 36-of-70 from the field, (51.4%), while WCU shot 32-of-76 (42.1%).
• WCU went 11-of-31 (35.5%) from three, while Wofford went 3-of-15 (20%).
• Wofford blocked seven shots in the game, a season high.
• The Terriers had a 64 to 40 advantage in points in the paint.
• The last time a Wofford opponent scored 40 or more points was Charles Garcia of Seattle on November 28, 2009. The last time two players scored 30 or more against Wofford was on January 10, 1994 (Elon).