The SoCon Lowdown: The SoCon Player of the Year race is on
Plus: Jake Stephens's dominance, Mike Bothwell's heroism, and Arthur Ash's breakout
There was always a chance Jake Stephens could run away with SoCon Player of the Year honors, but nobody could have seen this level of excellence coming. The VMI transfer, now at Chattanooga, has been a force amid the Mocs’ solid 8-4 season. This week was one of his most exceptional yet: 24 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 blocks in a win over Middle Tennessee, followed by 32 points, 20 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 3 steals (including a career-high 9 offensive rebounds) in a loss to Belmont. Stephens is in strong position to give Chattanooga back-to-back Lou Henson Award winners, and he could be the key piece that puts them in play for back-to-back tournament appearances. First, however, they’ll have to get past the conference frontrunner…
Okay, so most people wouldn’t think of a team on a six-game losing streak as a natural leader, but Samford is still—barely—clinging to first in the SoCon, by Torvik’s estimation. (The Mocs are two spots behind, the Paladins three.) At least most of the losses in that streak were to solid teams, but falling to non-D1 Tennessee Southern and now to 1-11 South Carolina State raises some serious questions about how low the floor is here. The imminent return of Ques Glover, who has played just one of the last five games, should raise it a good deal, but Samford has a lot to figure out. Their last non-conference game, a visit to Belmont, should be intriguing.
Stephens has some strong challengers in the SoCon, but recently he’s made an authoritative case as the heavy favorite in that Player of the Year race. Against Middle Tennessee, he became the eighth player since 2010 to post a 20-point, 10-rebound, 4-assist, 4-block line twice in a career, and the first to do it at two different schools. Then, despite losing to Belmont, he was the undeniable star, putting up the second 30-point, 20-rebound, 5-block line of the last decade. He’s sitting on career highs in points (22.5), rebounds (10.5), and blocks (2.5) per game, and under his watch the Mocs have made it clear they’ll be a major player in their conference title defense.
If Stephens has a challenger in that hunt, it’s Mike Bothwell. The fifth-year senior is about to surpass Devin Sibley for the second-most games ever played in a Furman uniform, and he’s going out in style. Bothwell has over fifteen points in ten of the Paladins’ twelve games, and he singlehandedly dragged them to a thrilling victory over Stephen F. Austin in the Greenville Winter Invitational. With 36 points, a 12-for-14 shooting performance, a perfect 11-for-11 mark from the line, and a game-winning turnaround jumper with fractions of a second left, it marked the best performance of the SoCon season yet. Mark your calendars: Bothwell vs. Stephens, Round I, is just under a month away.
The Spartans might’ve just picked up the SoCon’s best win of the year. For a team which has struggled with inconsistency at times, everything came together in Greensboro as UNCG knocked off 9-1 Marshall, 75-67. Five players scored nine or more points, including both Langley brothers (27 points combined), and Keondre Kennedy, Bas Leyte, and Mikeal Brown-Jones contributed great ball movement, totalling 27 rebounds. If the Spartans’ perimeter defense can step up—and it has lately, with their last three opponents going 12-for-67 from three—they’ll be a force to reckon with in conference play.
It was an uneventful week for Mercer; they were favored handily over Morehead State and took care of business, rolling to an easy 79-52 victory at home. The Bears have rarely looked bad this year, but it remains to be seen how much they can punch up in conference play; they still haven’t defeated a top-200 opponent by Torvik’s measure. While Mercer’s position in the upper crust of the midfield could be valuable, they’ll need to pull upsets over the top four to make the most of it. Finding someone to make plays in the paint is vital.
Head coach Jay McAuley’s unexplained, involuntary leave of absence still looms over the Terriers, but Dwight Perry has done a decent job at the helm. An ugly loss to Georgia Southern is in the past now, and Wofford wasted no time dispatching non-D1 Montreat, a solid team at its level. The Terriers are a massive underdog heading to Texas A&M tomorrow, but they nearly beat LSU and Vanderbilt on the road earlier this season; the chances of an upset may be higher than they look if Perry can rally his team at the end of non-conference play.
It’s getting harder to see ETSU’s poor record as deceiving. The Buccaneers, picked sixth in the preseason poll, have just two D1 wins over 2-10 Elon and 3-8 Little Rock, both over a month in the past. They’ve had chances in four straight games, but have lost by a combined ten points to Jacksonville State, Morehead State, Queens, and UNC-Asheville. There just isn’t anybody on this team, with the possible exception of underused junior Josh Taylor, who can take over a game and hit must-have shots or draw must-have fouls. A visit to LSU doesn’t help their hopes of ending the losing streak; that’ll have to wait until they face their first conference foe a week later.
The Bulldogs’ strong season has hit a rough patch lately, as they’ve lost three straight by a combined 60 points. It’s not too bad to be outclassed by Charleston and North Carolina, of course, but dropping a home game to Longwood is the sort of thing The Citadel had largely avoided thus far. On the upside, standout guard Austin Ash continues to dazzle despite the recent struggles; his 27 points set his fourth career high of the season against the Lancers. Despite never scoring ten points in a game before this season, Ash has emerged as the centerpiece for the high-flying Bulldogs as they look ahead to a murderer’s row of the SoCon’s top three teams around New Year’s Day.
The Catamounts took care of business, going on the road to defeat Tennessee Tech 75-65. More and more, WCU looks like the streakiest team in the conference: they’ve lost in streaks of two and four, while winning in streaks of four and now two. Their blowout defeats at the hands of Gardner-Webb and USC Upstate are some of the worst basketball any SoCon team has played, but at times they’ve looked capable of obliterating weaker opponents. Conference play should give us a better handle on what, exactly, they can be.
VMI’s three-game winning streak was snapped unceremoniously in a road loss to American—admittedly, a pretty good team and one the Keydets were able to hang with for a while. Freshman Tony Felder continues to establish himself as their biggest saving grace: he led the team with 21 points against the Eagles, and he’s averaging 12.1 points per game on an average of just under 26 minutes. The Keydets are starting to use him more, and it’s resulted in increased success for both.
Around the former SoCon…
Davidson had #1 Purdue within a point at halftime and were within a score in the final minutes, but eventually fell 69-61 on the road.
Georgia took down Notre Dame definitively to move to 8-3, picking up their best win of a remarkably solid season.
After that loss to UNCG, Marshall bounced back by rolling past a good Toledo team, outscoring them 55-41 in the second half and 100-85 overall.
North Carolina has recovered quickly after a four-game losing streak, outdueling Ohio State 89-84 in an overtime thriller from Madison Square Garden.
NC State has established itself as a likely tournament team and potential top-25 contender, picking up statement wins over Furman and Vanderbilt this week.
While Tennessee fell to Arizona on Sunday, they picked up a big win over Maryland in New York thanks to a shutdown performance on defense.
At the same event, Virginia Tech outlasted Oklahoma State and used a win over Grambling State to reach 11-1, with their only loss to Charleston.
UNCG men’s soccer went on a magical run to the D1 quarterfinals, and they earned a season-ending #5 ranking from the Coaches Poll, the highest in program history. In football, The Citadel tabbed Maurice Drayton as its next head coach, a recent NFL special teams coordinator (and former Bulldogs DC) who worked with Corey Bojorquez and Mason Crosby at Green Bay.