SoCon Fans

Wofford 88, Chattanooga 56

College basketball, like life itself, can be full of mysteries and brain-busting moments. One of them took place on a baffling Thursday evening at Benjamin Johnson Arena in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

It’s not hugely surprising that the Wofford Terriers defeated the Chattanooga Mocs in a battle of two upper-tier teams in the Southern Conference. Coach Mike Young’s Wofford wonderboys are the defending SoCon champions, the program that carried the league’s banner into last year’s NCAA Tournament and very nearly knocked off Wisconsin in a contentious first-round game in Jacksonville, Florida. Wofford owns belief, boldness and a dash of brilliance at times. Moreover, the Terriers took the court with a 5-1 conference record in this game, so the idea of a Wofford win was hardly unexpected.

It was the way this game unfolded that caught everyone by surprise. The big dog in the SoCon played like… dogs.

For whatever reason, Coach John Shulman’s crew was body-snatched and bamboozled from tip to horn. Perhaps Chattanooga, which came into this confrontation sporting a 7-0 SoCon record, was mentally drained after taking down South Division co-leader Charleston on Monday night in a 91-88 thriller. Perhaps the travel, combined with just two off days, took away the Mocs’ legs. Then again, it’s not as though travel is particularly daunting in the SoCon; moreover, two off days shouldn’t really have too much of an effect, whereas one off day very well might. There was just no way to easily explain this no-show by the leader of the pack in this mid-major conference.

Wofford bolted to a 20-3 lead in the opening minutes, mimicking the 19-4 start Denver attained against Arkansas State in another Thursday-night game of consequence in the realm of the mid-major leagues. Wofford attained that position of advantage by doing something simple yet supremely important: shooting the cover off the ball. The Terriers terrorized the Mocs by hitting 12 of 21 3-pointers, a blistering 57-percent conversion rate that matched Wofford’s overall field goal percentage. The home team hit 34 of 59 field goal attempts to bury Chattanooga and accumulate a lead as great as 42 points in the second half.

Chattanooga had one player show up, and he was a reserve: Forward Troy Cage scored 19 points on 6-of-10 shooting. Other than him, no one else in a 10-player rotation scored more than 7 points, a shocking thing to contemplate for a league-leading team. In contrast, Wofford generated three big performances on Thursday. Jamar Diggs (24 points), Cameron Rundles (23), and Noah Dahlman (22) combined for 69 points, meaning that they would have beaten Chattanooga by 13 points on their own. The terrific trio hit 27 of its 35 combined shots, just under 80 percent from the field. For purposes of comparison, that’s pretty much the percentage (78.6) that Villanova attained in the seminal 1985 NCAA championship game upset of Georgetown.

Wofford (now 6-1 in the SoCon and tied with Charleston for the South Division lead) is a good team. What’s surprising is that Chattanooga (now 7-1 and still leading the North) failed to make an appearance in a noteworthy encounter.

We’ll see if the SoCon Tournament in March brings these teams together… and creates a different outcome.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer