Tested Terriers
Coach Mike Young and the 12th-seeded Wofford Terriers won’t be intimidated when they take on the fifth-seeded Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday night in the West Regional of the NCAA Tournament at Veterans Coliseum in Jacksonville, Fla. Wofford (28-6), the Southern Conference’s regular season and tournament champion, is making its fourth tournament appearance in the past six seasons.
FAYETTEVILLE — Wofford isn’t likely to be intimidated by facing Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament.
The Terriers (28-6), the Southern Conference regular season and tournament champions, will take the most successful team in school history to face the Razorbacks, the runners-up from the SEC, late Thursday at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Jacksonville, Fla., a 51/ 2- hour drive from the Wofford campus in Spartanburg, S.C.
Coach Mike Young’s team has reached the NCAA Tournament four times in the past six seasons, including a trip to Jacksonville in 2010 when the team stayed in the same hotel they checked into Tuesday evening.
Those Terriers put a scare into No. 4 seed Wisconsin before losing 53-49 in the first round.
This year’s team has won eight games in a row and 15 of its past 16 while setting the school record for most victories in a season. The Terriers, who start two seniors, two juniors and a sophomore, are playing in their second consecutive NCAA Tournament.
“For them it’s a comfort level, and for us it’s just going out and getting comfortable,” Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson said. “It’s a very skilled basketball team. They want to spread you, backdoor you, come off screens. They want to run sets most of the time. Their defense is only giving up 59 points a game, so it’s a solid team, a very good, solid team.”
Wofford has big-game experience, having played at Duke, West Virginia and North Carolina State and on a
Wofford players celebrate neutral floor against Stanford this season. The Terriers took down the Wolfpack 55-54 on Dec. 14 in Raleigh, N.C.
Senior Earl Cochran, the team’s leading scorer at 14.6 points per game, and junior Spencer Collins (11.6 ppg) work the backcourt along with sophomore point guard Eric Garcia (7.8). Senior Lee Skinner (10.0) and junior Justin Gordon (7.6), both 6-6, start in the front court.
“They’re a team that’s midsized,” Anderson said. “They have some great guards. They have some 6-6 post guys. So that tells me they’re a versatile basketball team and they want to really execute in their halfcourt offense.”
Wofford assistant coach Tim Johnson, who drew the scouting report on Arkansas, said he put a critical eye on the Razorbacks at the SEC Tournament because one of ESPN. com’s NCAA Tournament projections by Joe Lunardi’s last week paired Arkansas and Wofford in the West Region’s 5-12 game.
“I watched them in the SEC Tournament a little closer than I normally would,” Johnson told the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald.
“They are really, really Young told reporters the night the pairings were announced. “We have a heck of a challenge ahead of us.”
Anderson is wary of Wofford’s 37.6 percent shooting from three-point range, led by Collins (38.3 percent), Cochran (37.5 percent) and reserve Jaylen Allen (40.7 percent.)
“They have multiple guys that can shoot the basketball, especially from the perimeter, and that’s something we haven’t really done a good job on all year long,” Anderson said. “At times we’ve done a good job of covering the perimeter, but we’re going to really have to be on task on our assignments.”
The Razorbacks plan to put Wofford’s ball-handling and depth to the test with their full-court defense. The Terriers average 10.9 turnovers per game, and the Razorbacks force 15.9 turnovers per game.
“You get to this part of the year, I want our guys to turn up the volume even more, turn up the intensity defensively, and offensively as well,” Anderson said. “The bench has to really get involved.”
Wofford can fall back on the experience it gained in its 77-44 loss at West Virginia to compare to Arkansas.
“Maybe the most athletic team we played was West Virginia,” Collins told the Spartanburg Herald. “They pressed us the whole game. So I think we’ve prepared for this moment. We’ll be just about as comfortable and confident as possible.”
Johnson told the Herald the Terriers’ poise has grown since the West Virginia game in late December.
But the Terriers haven’t grown in stature since then, which is a cause for concern against Arkansas, which is led by 6-11 SEC Player of the Year Bobby Portis and has four regulars who are 6-6 or taller.
“We’ve played Duke and we’ve played Stanford,” Cochran told the Herald. “We’ve seen size before, and to be honest, it hurt us a lot. But we kind of got a feel for it and got better and better against big guys. We know how important it is to box out and get rebounds and limit teams to one shot.
“We’re going in with the mind-set of working on the glass and matching their toughness.”