March 6, 2022
After all the chaos of the late-season seeding drama, and the tension of three quarterfinals that went down to the wire, the SoCon semifinals ended up with #1, #2, #3, and #4. But there's still plenty of intrigue for the second-to-last day of the tournament. Vegas and the major metrics have put their money on #4 Wofford and #2 Furman, with the consensus lines sitting at Mocs -1.5 and Paladins -8.5. Can Chattanooga fend off a Terriers squad that may well be their toughest title contender, and can Furman get revenge on the hottest team in the league?
#1 Chattanooga 71, #9 The Citadel 66
It was a fun, if brief, run for The Citadel (13-18, 7-13), and their win over ETSU and competitive loss to Chattanooga do indeed offer some hope for next season. Now, the question on everybody's minds is whether team leader Hayden Brown will return for one more year after five seasons of standing out on a back-of-the-pack Bulldogs team. If he does move on, he went out on top, leading The Citadel with 17 points and 6 rebounds before fouling out late in their comeback bid.
Chattanooga (25-7, 15-4) moves on to the semifinals behind an emblematic performance from their top two. SoCon Player of the Year Malachi Smith and Mocs veteran David Jean-Baptiste haven't always been on the same wavelength, but their 19 and 20 points comfortably led the way in the win and reinforced what a dangerous duo they can be. For all the talk about Wofford's metrics, Samford's clutch play, and Furman's all-around talent, it's worth remembering that this team just picked up their 25th win and is still the easy title favourite.
#4 Wofford 68, #5 VMI 66
KenPom's predictions for the SoCon tournament had Furman and Chattanooga as 1A and 1B—in that order, somewhat surprisingly—but their most interesting prediction was Wofford (19-12, 11-8) as the lone team to properly emerge from the pack. Credit where credit's due: the Terriers have been the most consistent all-around in the SoCon contender since Davidson left the conference, and they did finish the season winning four of five, their only loss coming at Furman by just a point. But can they take it to the top teams and steal the autobid? That's TBD, at least for a few more hours before they face Chattanooga. At any rate, they were able to beat a VMI team with a lot of talented depth that hasn't converted it into overall success, which is a decent blueprint for facing the Mocs.
That being said, it came right down to the wire, and VMI (16-15, 9-10) has a lot of what-ifs to think over in the offseason. With a roster led by Jake Stephens (who scored 23 in this losing effort), Trey Bonham, and Honor Huff, the Keydets always had the ability to hang with anyone in the SoCon on a good day. But VMI struggled to put it all together throughout the season, and they met their fate at the hands of a team that executed everything just a little bit better. BJ Mack and Max Klesmit, as usual, took the lead for the Terriers, each scoring 15 points with Mack adding 10 rebounds, but a career day from sophomore Morgan Safford (17 points, 7 rebounds) was critical in the win. In three games against the Keydets this year, Safford averaged 13 points and 5 rebounds, well above his overall marks of 6.3 and 3.4. This is one VMI will want back, especially with POTY contender Stephens having played his final game for them.
#2 Furman 80, #7 Mercer 66
The lone blowout of the quarterfinals went pretty much the same as the first two matches between the Paladins and Bears. Mercer (16-17, 9-11) wasn't even that bad this year, but Furman in particular always seemed to have their number: they lost 81-66 on the road, 80-50 at home, and 80-66 in Asheville to end their season. The Bears ended up losing four of their last five and falling from three-seed contender to first-round team, an ignominious finish for a team that at times looked like it could tangle with the Chattanoogas and Woffords of the conference. With team-leading seniors Felipe Haase and Jalen Johnson likely to leave, it's back to the drawing board for Mercer.
Furman (21-11, 13-6) is in a uniquely good position going into the semifinals, being the only team that won in a blowout and thus got to rest most of its starters. That being said, the lone team in that situation during the first round was Mercer, so it's not a given that it'll be a major advantage for the Paladins. Despite none of them playing more than 32 minutes, four of Furman's five starters scored 13 or more points, and freshman JP Pegues impressed off the bench with 10 points and 5 rebounds in 21 minutes. Now they'll seek revenge against the only team to beat them in the last three weeks, with a trip to the SoCon championship on the line—representing a tournament bid the Paladins haven't won in over 40 years and the Bulldogs haven't secured in over 20.
#3 Samford 66, #6 UNC-Greensboro 64
This game felt very similar to VMI-Wofford in a narrative sense: both teams have clear, excellent upside, but one has delivered on that promise much better this season, and it was enough to lift the Terriers past the Keydets and to get Samford (21-10, 11-8) past UNCG and into the semifinals. The Bulldogs absolutely dominated the first half, storming to a 44-22 lead, but the Spartans went on a massive run out of halftime, scoring 15 unanswered to draw within single digits. From that point on, they drifted in and out of contention, with Samford occasionally stretching the lead out as wide as 11 points but UNCG finding ways to close the gap.
The game ended with a genuinely baffling sequence that goes a long way towards understanding why UNC-Greensboro (17-14, 9-10), despite being the bewildering kind of team that can turn the ball over a dozen times and still beat Chattanooga and Furman, was just the six seed and didn't make it to the semis. With just over a minute to go, the Spartans trailed by six and were fielding a lineup of all five starters. Four—Dante Treacy, Bas Leyte, De'Monte Buckingham, and surprise star Mohammed Abdulsalam—had scored in the double digits. The other was Kobe Langley, who had attempted five shots and missed all five for a grand total of zero points. From this point on, UNCG would have three possessions to end the game. Each of them ended with Langley attempting a three-point shot; the last two were both from well outside the arc, came with time left on the shot and game clock, and missed. Samford won by two.
Semifinal Predictions
#1 Chattanooga 67
#4 Wofford 64
Chattanooga being favoured by just 1.5 points feels like an easy bet, right? But while the Mocs did easily sweep the season series, their most recent meeting with the Terriers was in late January. Wofford's gone on a late-season tear, and Mack and Klesmit are going to make life difficult for Chattanooga, who will probably need both Smith and Jean-Baptiste to step up once again. The difference in this game, if I had to guess, will be the coaching experience of Lamont Paris, facing the first Wofford team to reach the semifinals under third-year coach Jay McAuley. The Mocs win and get a chance to add the tournament title to their regular-season crown—but it goes right down to the wire.
#2 Furman 61
#3 Samford 69
Metrics have not made much of Samford this season. KenPom actually had Samford as an underdog against UNC-Greensboro yesterday, and the Torvik line for this semifinal is Paladins -8.8. But at some point, you've got to give the Bulldogs their due. As I said, they've put all the pieces together down the stretch in a way that few teams in this conference have. It makes all the sense in the world that a team led by four sophomores and a freshman, whose best player is a 6'0" transfer who couldn't crack the lineup at Florida, wouldn't be able to compete with the polished Paladins product. But for one reason or another, that logic hasn't tracked with their results for well over a month. I wouldn't bet on Samford coming down to earth now.