The SoCon Lowdown: Woolbright against the world
Plus: Samford breaks barriers and UNCG breaks down
The records are going down, one by one. Last Saturday: his NCAA-leading third triple-double of the season, his program-record fourth of his career. Just yesterday: his eighth Player of the Week selection in the SoCon, tying the league record held by Steph Curry’s storied 2008-09 season. With 21 double-doubles and six games left in the regular season, plus whatever postseason games may come, the conference (Jerry West’s 30) and NCAA (David Robinson’s 31) records for single-season double-doubles are in reach, too.
Vonterius Woolbright has been surpassingly exceptional all season, but after a long drought, WCU finally seems to be finding its own around him again. The Catamounts broke their 1-5 skid this week, surviving a battle with The Citadel before crushing Mercer in perhaps their most impressive performance of the year. They’re still stuck in the messy middle of the SoCon, tied for fourth with Wofford and Furman, but they’re in stronger shape as they approach the tournament. Round three against Samford might await in Asheville; round two, though, is this week in Homewood. For the first time in weeks, the Cats look ready for it.
Samford trailed by as many as nine points in the first half against UNC Greensboro, and seven at halftime. They didn’t lead by more than a single possession until the last three minutes of the game. They still won by nine, shutting the Spartans down with a game-ending 18-9 run as they completed a season sweep of UNCG and, once again, firmly staked their claim to first place in the conference. Nobody seems likely to catch them at this point; the rest of the regular season is preparation for Asheville, as well as setting some new records. One of the biggest ones went down this week, as the Bulldogs reached 22 wins on the season for the first time in program history. They’ve done that with just one loss in their last 23 games.
It’s hard to know what to expect from Chattanooga in any given game. More likely than not, though, it’ll be a win, which is how they’ve made it to 9-3 and second in the SoCon despite some blowout losses and close calls. They’re capable of nearly losing to VMI, even as former Keydets Trey Bonham and Honor Huff poured in 37 points against their old team. They’re also capable of crushing UNC Greensboro by nearly thirty, with Bonham tying his career high by putting up 31 on the Spartans in that win. It seems unlikely that they can take down Samford, but their two games against UNCG saw a 44-point swing, so anything’s possible. With this team, anyway.
This week was a crippling blow for UNC Greensboro, which started SoCon play 8-2 and finally looked capable of sharing a court with the conference’s best. Losing to Samford is forgivable, though it ended any realistic chance of denying the Bulldogs the regular-season title; losing to Chattanooga by such a decisive margin, though, raises some major questions about this team. Defense has been a growing liability—they’ve given up 87, 78, and 89 in their last three games—and as good as Mikeal Brown-Jones and the Langley twins are, they’ve been struggling to keep up. Favored by between 0 and 3 points in Torvik for five of their last six games, UNCG isn’t getting a break anytime soon.
On paper, Western Carolina is the best bet to steal the conference autobid from Samford, which doesn’t necessarily feel wrong. But how good of a bet that is depends a lot on what we see as we get closer to Asheville, which is what makes their rematch with the Bulldogs this week so important. The Catamounts have pulled themselves out of freefall, but they haven’t beaten a team in the SoCon’s top six since early January. That probably won’t change against Samford—the Pete is a tough place to win at the best of times—but it’s a chance to see how well WCU’s rebound can hold up.
Furman has been red hot and ice cold this year, and right now they’re still riding out a brutal stretch in which they’ve gone 2-3 (and been close to going 0-5) against mostly-underwhelming competition. Wins and losses aren’t all that important until the conference tournament, but the Paladins obviously need to get out of their current slump by March. The schedule doesn’t let up much, either—visits to Samford and WCU still lurk ahead down the stretch of the regular season.
Wofford’s schedule this year has given them something of an off-and-on slate, which has made it tough to tell how good they are, exactly. The Terriers started out by struggling to a 4-1 record against weak competition—then picked up some really impressive wins over Furman and WCU, making a stronger claim to legitimate strength in the SoCon. Now they’re going back through the bottom feeders (aside from VMI), and they’ve already taken a loss to East Tennessee State, which promptly calls their true strength into question once again. We’ll figure out soon, as the Terriers will face all of UNCG, Chattanooga, Furman, and Samford in order over the next couple weeks.
East Tennessee State is probably a bit too far back to avoid the play-in at this point. There are three teams tied at 7-5, two games up of the Bucs, so the chances of one of them experiencing a catastrophic freefall aren’t nothing, but I wouldn’t count on it. Still, ETSU is probably headed towards a just-under-.500 finish in conference play that would ordinarily land them in the top six, and that’s worth celebrating even if the goalposts are in a weird place this year. Brooks Savage’s team hasn’t lost by more than three points since January 21, and the two close defeats in that span came against Samford and Furman.
If nothing else, Mercer has had an…interesting season. In the last five games, they’ve somehow pulled off a stunning win at UNC Greensboro, then another on home court against Furman. They’ve also lost at home to ETSU (while scoring 49) and on the road against WCU (while scoring 46). These, it seems, are the perils of having an offense so painfully reliant on Jalyn McCreary—a very good player, but one whose minutes have often been limited this year due to injury, and whose play isn’t consistent enough to make the entire foundation of the team’s performance. In those upset wins, he put up a remarkable 43 points in just 50 total minutes. In the losses: 10 points in 38 minutes.
This week probably determines who finishes last in the SoCon, which—as we’ve already discussed a few times—is a pretty sorry spot for The Citadel to be in after their strong non-conference showing. Despite losing eleven of their first twelve games in league play, though, the Bulldogs are still a whopping 13.2-point favorite in Torvik when VMI comes to town this weekend. It’s more of a comment on the Keydets, but still, The Citadel has been competent despite the lack of wins. They hung around right to the end against WCU, leading inside the last two minutes, and led Wofford most of the way despite somehow losing by 13 in the end. The results, as ever, just aren’t coming, but the potential is there. Ed Conroy has time to turn it into something more, though it’s running a little short nowadays.
VMI does have close games against the rest of the conference from time to time, rare though they may be, and they had one this week. Chattanooga pulled out to a ten-point lead fairly early on and held it deep into the second half, but the Keydets erased the deficit and actually went up 80-77 with less than two minutes left. They ended up losing—with former VMI transfer Trey Bonham and Honor Huff combining for 37 points—but still, it’s progress of a sort! Nevertheless, they’re still probably finishing with one D1 win on the year, and it’s hard to see Andrew Wilson surviving a second season like that.
Furman mourned the untimely passing of football student-athlete Bryce Stanfield; he was posthumously awarded his degree in Friday morning ceremonies last week. Samford was named the league favorite in baseball by the 2024 preseason coaches poll, with Bulldogs junior Brooks Rice selected as preseason pitcher of the year; VMI senior Justin Starke was selected as preseason player of the year. East Tennessee State hired Allen Vital, who has coached at Tusculum for the last thirteen seasons, as its men’s soccer coach.