Wofford men's basketball coach Mike Young wasn't pleased with the Jekyll-and-Hyde team he had been seeing for most of the season.
Although he's still not completely sure what he has coming off the bench, he's willing to use as many - or as few - players as it takes to get the job done.
The Terriers continued their "good" streak with a 79-76 win over East Tennessee State on Monday, their third consecutive win to improve to 7-5 in Southern Conference play. That followed defeats of The Citadel and Mercer.
The "good" Terriers also beat current league-leading Furman and handed UNC Greensboro a 19-point loss on Jan. 25. Then there are the "not so good" Terriers, who lost at home to a young Citadel team on Jan. 2 and also fell at Western Carolina. The Bulldogs and Catamounts are each 2-10 in league play.
Young said Tuesday he feels good about some recent adjustments to the rotation - namely cutting it down.
"We can't play as many players. We are who we are," Young said. "We'll go to the finish line with seven, eight players. It took a long time for us to figure that out."
Historically one of the better defensive teams in the league, Wofford has struggled there this season. The Terriers rank eighth in scoring defense and eighth in field-goal-percentage defense, with opponents shooting 47 percent against them. Young likes the offensive flow - the Terriers average 78.2 points per game, third in the league - but would rather see them possess the ball better, and the games shortened.
"We can score, but I don't want to test-drive that often against teams like ETSU and Chattanooga," he said. "I thought we guarded well against ETSU, and that's an attribute to shortening the bench and playing guys who understand what playing our way means."
Mercer playing close
Mercer coach Bob Hoffman sounded weary last week when talking about his team.
The Bears were coming off a 70-68 loss to Furman, a game lost on a jump shot in the final seconds. Then Wofford beat them 65-62 on a 3-pointer with three seconds remaining.
Mercer is 5-7 in league play. Three of the losses came in the final five seconds and two others - to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and at Furman - were by two points and were decided in the final minute.
"The guys are fighting with every ounce of their being," Hoffman told the Macon Telegraph last week. "They're trying to make it happen. I applaud how hard they're playing. I know lots of people are doubting these guys, but that's the wrong thing to do because they're amazing young men trying really hard to do the right thing together. They're working really hard to get over the hump and just hadn't been able to do it yet."
Cromer player of week
ETSU's T.J. Cromer was named SoCon player of the week after consecutive games of 24 points.
He made 17 of his 28 shots and was 9-for-15 from 3-point range as the Bucs defeated Virginia Military Institute 81-71 before falling at Wofford.
Other top SoCon performers included The Citadel's Warren Sledge, Furman's Devin Sibley, Mercer's Ria'n Holland, Samford's Demetrius Denzel-Dyson, UTC's Justin Tuoyo, Western Carolina's Haboubacar Mutombo and Wofford's Eric Garcia.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.