The SoCon Lowdown: Chasing Steph Curry
Plus: WCU's close calls and the reason for Furman's collapse
Very few players define Southern Conference lore as much as Steph Curry. The nine-time NBA All-Star still holds the single-season NCAA record for made threes, led Davidson on a magical Elite Eight run, and—among many other accomplishments—was named SoCon Player of the Week eight times in the 2008-09 season. The mark has proven daunting for anybody to approach since then, as nobody even made it halfway until Malachi Smith and Jake Stephens each claimed four in 2021-22. Last year, Jake Stephens was in position to surpass it, claiming six POTW awards by early January—whereupon he suffered an injury that left him unavailable until the SoCon tournament.
The resemblance between Stephens last year and Vonterius Woolbright this year is impossible to miss, though hopefully it doesn’t extend to the latter also missing time. And here’s one more thing these two stars can swap notes about: hunting down Steph for this minor, but meaningful, accomplishment. Woolbright claimed his fifth award this week, adding them to his trophy case along with a sweep of both Player of the Month titles thus far, and now has the most in a single season in WCU history. Somehow, he only seems to be getting better; he recorded two double-doubles in the Catamounts’ first two conference games, and he didn’t need the second half either time. And while a complete comparison to Steph would obviously be spectacularly lofty, it’s fair to say he’s in position for the best season a SoCon player has had since.
Woolbright might have led WCU to a 2-0 start, but in Torvik’s estimation, Samford still commands a firm lead of the conference rankings. It’s difficult to argue that point, honestly; the last time they lost, Duke and Michigan State were top-five teams and current #9 Oklahoma didn’t have a single vote. The Bulldogs did struggle with both Chattanooga and The Citadel for a while, but pulled away early in both second halves—in the latter game, thanks to a gobsmacking run by Achor Achor in which he scored fifteen points in the first 3:01 out of halftime. Samford has now won thirteen in a row, tying the mark set by their 1998-99 tournament team and one away from the program record set by the 1960-61 team. Getting there won’t be easy, though: UNC Greensboro comes to the Pete next.
The Catamounts should have run away with both of their wins this week; they led The Citadel by as much as 20 and Wofford by as much as 18. Both leads slipped away to an extent, though—the former never enough to matter in an 80-71 victory, the latter enough to let Wofford within a single basket during the final minute, though WCU escaped unscathed with a 70-66 win. That hair-raising near collapse aside, the Cats don’t just have their best player in decades; they also have the first 13-2 or better start Cullowhee has ever seen.
Whatever funk had settled over UNC Greensboro’s offense in their return from the Christmas break seems to have, mercifully, dissipated. The Spartans weren’t necessarily impressive—relative to SoCon frontrunner expectations, anyway—but they reversed a lengthy downward trend and put in their best week since November, dealing with both Furman and ETSU. This revitalization might have come just in time for their most important stretch of the season: a run of five games bookended by visits to Samford and Western Carolina, the two contenders that currently stand above them.
I want to give ETSU credit for hanging around with UNC Greensboro for most of the game—never leading, or even pulling into a tie after the Spartans scored 12 seconds in, but sticking within a couple shots well into the second half. But that frankly feels like a consequence of UNCG tweaking its lineup and trying to find scorers ahead of Thursday’s pivotal game; they scored a mere 70 points, which was only enough to blow out the Buccaneers because of their ghastly total of 54. Brooks Savage has been building up a punchy program, but their offense remains head-scratching…particularly given they entered this game fresh off their two best offensive performances of the year, per Torvik.
The contrast between Furman and Chattanooga in Saturday’s game couldn’t have been more obvious. The former was clearly on a lengthy downward trend, entering the game demoralized and listless, and leaving with just two scorers in double digits, both shooting under .300 from the field. The latter had an embarrassment of riches, with starters Tyler Millin, Sam Alexis, and Trey Bonham shooting 8-for-11, 5-for-9, and 5-for-6, respectively. The only thing this narrative doesn’t square with is, well, basically everything else the Mocs have done this season. They looked solid in a loss at Samford earlier in the week, sure, but this dominant game score of 96 pairs with a score of 81 in their first D1 game this year (against Louisville)—and nothing over 58 in the two months between those performances. You’d hope that this time, such a stellar day proves to be a sign of things to come.
Only Wofford could, in the span of three days, go from nearly losing to the SoCon’s worst team to scaring the living daylights out of one of its best. The Terriers looked deeply mortal in a bewildering near-catastrophe against VMI, trailing for most of regulation and failing to hold any of several late leads to allow overtime, where Corey Tripp saved the day with a jumper in the closing seconds. Wofford promptly followed up the worst possible win you can have in this conference with something close to the best possible loss, nearly engineering a stunning 18-point comeback against WCU before falling just short. Credit Tripp for another excellent game in the clutch, though; it was his singlehanded 6-2 run ending within the final minute that nearly closed the gap, though he came up short on a pair of desperation shots down the stretch.
It was a fairly uneventful week for Mercer—a decisive loss to ETSU, a decisive win over VMI, no real change in the way we look at them—with one major exception. Jalyn McCreary, who closed out the non-conference slate ranking in the SoCon top ten in points, steals, and blocks, missed the opening week of conference play, and was seen wearing a medical mask in the Bears’ first game of 2024. News on Mercer’s clear best player hasn’t been forthcoming, though they’ve managed to handle his absence fairly well, with Robby Carmody and David Thomas both scoring 20 points against the Keydets to avoid any possibility of an embarrassing loss.
The Paladins’ recent skid largely comes down to one factor: threes. You might remember from last year that a key element of Bob Richey’s style is leaning heavily on shots from outside the arc, relying on a deep roster that was capable of making such plays at a reasonable clip, to set up scorers in the paint. That hasn’t changed—Furman is once again twelfth nationally in three-point rate—and the inside scoring is indeed still humming along, with the ‘dins sitting 26th in two-point percentage. But the three-point percentage has taken a 101-point dive thanks to some losses and some dismal underperformance, particularly lately. Furman is a horrendous 18-for-111 (.162!) on threes across their last four games, and the unsurprising 1-3 record in that span has dropped them three games under .500 for the first time since 2016. If they start hitting those shots again, they’re a SoCon contender, but that’s a deeply uncertain conditional at the moment.
Running into the buzzsaw of WCU and Samford fresh off a surprising and exciting 8-5 non-conference start ended predictably for The Citadel, though the energy is far from gone. Both the Catamounts and the Bulldogs had to work for their wins, and this team still carries some significant momentum from the Notre Dame upset as they head into a massive week of basketball. Furman and Wofford, both among the Bulldogs’ most bitter rivals, await on Wednesday and Saturday—the latter marking The Citadel’s first home game with students back on campus following the winter break. After an admittedly underwhelming atmosphere at McAlister Field House in their first two games, an even-handed duel with the Terriers (combined with the rapid rise Ed Conroy has pieced together) ought to draw a stronger crowd.
The Keydets got so incredibly close against Wofford, yet they fell just short, one shot shy of winning or at least forcing a second overtime period. A game like that might be the only thing more disheartening than VMI’s long and, thus far, fruitless search for a D1 win, so it’s little surprise that they proceeded to put in one of their most lifeless showings this year in a blowout loss to Mercer at home. With two vital chances at that first top-flight victory slipping away, the Keydets’ next realistic opportunity won’t be until January 20, when The Citadel comes to town. After that, well…the odds say they’ve got to win one or two of the 15 games where they’re a projected underdog of 8 or more points, but we’ve heard that all before. The mood in Lexington seems to find a new nadir every week, and this one is no exception.
What Vonterius Woolbright is in men’s basketball, Wofford’s Rachael Rose is in women’s; she likewise recently secured her fifth POTW award and, like Woolbright, was named Player of the Month for both November and December. Elsewhere, VMI’s Christopher Hicks and Victoria Phillips took home that honor in rifle for smallbore and air rifle performances, respectively; Chattanooga’s Kamdyn Munro, who scored 20 of a possible 24 points and led the Mocs to a 3-1 record for the month, earned the award in wrestling.