Wofford’s Fletcher Magee drives to the basket during a game against UTC at McKenzie Arena last season. Magee was announced Wednesday as the SoCon’s player of the year for the second straight season, and his Terriers are the No. 1 seed for the league tournament.The Southern Conference has a lengthy history with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Jerry West led West Virginia to a runner-up finish in 1959. Virginia Military Institute upset Tennessee and reached the Elite Eight in 1976, and the Elite Eight is where Stephen Curry guided Davidson in 2008.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga reached the Sweet 16 in 1997, but the SoCon has never received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
That could change this weekend, when the league stages its tournament in Asheville, North Carolina. If somebody could somehow knock off top-seeded Wofford, the SoCon would send multiple teams for the first time in its history.
“I honestly can’t spend a lot of time thinking about that, because I can’t affect it or do anything to bring it about,” SoCon commissioner John Iamarino said this week. “Would it be nice to get two teams in? Absolutely. It would be great not to hear the fact the SoCon has never had an at-large team, because I am kind of tired of that statement after all these years.
“It would be great if that would go away, but I’ve got to look at it both ways. If someone other than Wofford wins the tournament, I think we should get two in. If Wofford wins the tournament, they’re going to get a terrific seed with a good chance to advance.”
Dismissing Wofford either in Saturday’s quarterfinals, Sunday’s semifinals or Monday night’s championship game will be much easier said than done, given that Mike Young’s 22nd-ranked Terriers and No. 1 Gonzaga of the West Coast Conference are the only Division I teams that shredded their leagues without a blemish this regular season. Wofford will head to Asheville 26-4 overall – the losses were to expected NCAA tournament participants Kansas, Mississippi State, North Carolina and Oklahoma – and is 14th in the NET rankings that will be used by the tournament’s selection committee for the first time.
Much to the chagrin of the rest of the league, Wofford isn’t planning on just rolling over to create the two-bid opportunity.
“I don’t know how to treat it any other way,” Young told ESPN this week. “We always go to Asheville with the understanding that we’ve got to win three games if we’re going to advance to the NCAA tournament. This is uncharted territory for us.
“This isn’t the ACC or the Big Ten, where the top five, six or seven are going to go, so we’ll treat it the same way.”
Creating multiple NCAA bids for the SoCon likely will be up to Wofford’s top three challengers from the regular season – UNC Greensboro (26-5, 15-3), Furman (24-6, 13-5) and East Tennessee State University (23-8, 13-5). Furman is 44th in the NET rankings and owns a victory over 2018 NCAA champion Villanova, while UNCG is 58th and ETSU 66th.
The Terriers were taken into overtime by Samford and ETSU but closed their regular season with five double-digit wins in their last six games, with the exception a 72-64 triumph at Furman on Feb. 23.
“I think we know how good this league is, and I’m looking forward to this finish,” Furman coach Bob Richey said last week in a news conference after the loss to Wofford. “I believe in this group. I think we can go to Asheville and win. We’re gearing up for a finish, and college basketball is all about finishing.”
UTC (12-19, 7-11) is the fifth seed and opens against fourth-seeded ETSU at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
“We showed significant improvement from a team that finished 10th last year,” second-year Mocs coach Lamont Paris said. “I would like to have a couple more wins, but this league is so good that it wouldn’t have changed our place. We would be playing at the same time on the same day against the same team.”
Wofford is coming off an 85-64 pounding of Samford in which senior guard Fletcher Magee scored 36 points. Magee is averaging 20.7 points per game and is complemented by senior forward Cameron Jackson, who produces 14.5 points and 7.5 rebounds a game.
The Terriers have never won an NCAA tournament game, and the higher seed they can attain, the better their opportunity to advance. ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi projects Wofford as a No. 7 seed in NCAA play, which would be the highest ever for a SoCon team.
Since UTC’s memorable run 22 years ago, the only SoCon team to advance in the NCAA tournament was Davidson as it surged during Curry’s sophomore season.
“Wofford actually does, in some ways, remind me of that Davidson team,” said Iamarino, who was a guest this week of “Press Row” on Chattanooga’s ESPN 105.1 FM. “Fletcher Magee is a terrific ballplayer. I’m not sure if he’s as good as Steph Curry was, and I think he would be the first one to tell you that he’s not, but I think they’re deeper than that Davidson team was.
“Davidson made that run as a 10 seed, and if Wofford wins our tournament, we’re hoping they’ll be much better than a 10 seed.”
No talks planned
The SoCon men’s and women’s tournaments were held in Chattanooga in 2005, ’09 and ’11, but they’ve been in Asheville ever since. The league is scheduled to remain in Asheville through the 2021 season, with Iamarino adding, “We have not started talking about what we do after that.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.