SoCon Fans

(South-1) Wofford 56, (North-1) Appalachian State 51

After winning an ugly and uneven Southern Conference Tournament championship game, pardon the Wofford Terriers if they don’t really care how they arrived at the victory stand. When you’ve made history and forged the achievement of a lifetime, silly things like aesthetics cease to possess maximum value.

What counts in college sports is the bottom-line result, so after Wofford endured a poor shooting performance to outlast the Appalachian State Mountaineers for its first SoCon Tournament title, nobody in the Terriers’ locker room was the slightest bit perturbed about the way they took care of business in Charlotte, N.C.

Powered by a steady defense and aided by Appy State’s own errant marksmanship at Time Warner Cable Arena, a Wofford team that had been an answer to a very nagging trivia question finally broke free of its past. The school from Spartanburg, S.C., shook off decades of unhappy moments to reach the first NCAA Tournament in the history of the program. Coach Mike Young and the rest of the Wofford basketball family just earned themselves a richly-deserved place in their community’s heart.

Go ahead, then: Talk about the fact that Wofford hit just 35 percent of its shots on Monday night against coach Buzz Peterson’s hard-working but ultimately outgunned Mountaineers. Try to make light of the Terriers’ 15-of-25 performance at the foul line, which was worse if you account for missed front ends of one-and-ones, which essentially amount to two missed foul shots and not merely one.

Oh, and try to ask the Wofford coaches and players about the fact that after they held a 15-point halftime lead, they had to hang on for dear life at the end of this encounter, as Appy State drew within four points of a tie and had chances to shave the lead to one point in the final minute of regulation.

Yes, try to bring up all the deficiencies in Wofford’s performance on Monday – there were many such deficiencies to be found in a nationally televised game that was high on passion but lacking in basketball artistry. The Terriers won’t care for a very simple reason: They’re going dancing.

There are still a few teams in the ranks of Division I-A competition who have never ever participated in the NCAA Tournament. Northwestern is the one team from a BCS (or power) conference that has never been a part of March Madness, but there were several schools in smaller conferences who had never earned the privilege of competing in America’s favorite bracketed sporting event.

St. Francis (N.Y.) had never punched a tourney ticket. Neither had Army, in the Patriot League. Neither had William & Mary of the Colonial Athletic Association (and the Tribe fell short of a date with destiny by losing the CAA final to Old Dominion earlier on Monday).

But now, thanks to this five-point triumph in a game whose enthusiasm and energy made up for its lack of style and elegance, Wofford – lil’ ol’ Wofford – is no longer on a list of schools who had never sipped from the cup of sweet victory. On Thursday, March 18 or Friday March 19, the Wofford Terriers will find themselves in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Life will never be the same for any coach or player in that very distinguished inner circle.

Go ahead and make mention of their stylistic shortcomings in the SoCon final. The wonderboys from Wofford will be partying too much to care.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer