SPARTANBURG, SC – Wofford College outscored UNC Greensboro 12-6 in the second overtime period to come away with a 84-78 win in Southern Conference men's basketball action Monday night.
Drew Gibson opened the second extra-session with a 3-pointer and Wofford never surrendered the lead after that. He later added 5-of-6 from the line in the final 34 seconds.
UNCG (10-12, 3-5 SoCon) was led by the tandem of Kyle Hines and Ricky Hickman, who accounted for 54 of the Spartans' points, each scoring 27 points. For Hickman, a junior from Kernersville, NC, it was a season high in points, topping the 26 he had at Georgia Southern on Saturday night, and was his 20th consecutive game scoring in double figures.
Wofford (8-13, 3-5 SoCon) got 18 points and 14 rebounds from Tyler Berg and 14 points and 10 rebounds from Howard Wilkerson. Gibson added 10 points and a career-high 12 assists. Berg tied a career-high with the 14 boards.
Wofford rallied twice to force each overtime period. UNCG's Kevin Oleksiak knocked down a 3-pointer from the left corner with 16.7 seconds to play in regulation to give UNCG a 64-61 lead. Shane Nichols, however, answered on the other end with a 24-footer with four seconds left. Ricky Hickman tried to drive the length, but was stripped and regulation time expired.
UNCG held a two-point lead with 34.4 seconds left after Kyle Hines hit one of two at the free throw line. In a mad scramble, Byron Fields drove the lane and knocked down a 14-footer with 3.9 seconds left. Dwayne Johnson's midcourt shot missed to the right side of the rim and the game headed to double-overtime.
The Terriers used a 9-2 run midway through the first half, capped off by a 3-pointer by freshman Matt Estep, to open up an 18-14 lead. The first half remained tight from there, with neither team leading by more than four.
UNCG got back to even with 2:47 to play in the first half when Hickman rebounded his own miss of a free throw and put it back to tie the score, 24-24. Hickman then gave the Spartans the lead a little over a minute later with a 3-pointer to extend his streak of consecutive games with a three-pointer to 17 straight. By halftime, however, the score was deadlocked again, 29-29.
Two early technical fouls and a Wofford drought opened the second half. Terrier coach Mike Young was called for a technical in the opening minutes and senior Howard Wilkerson also got hit with one about three minutes later when he had words with UNCG's Matt Akinosho following a held ball situation. That, along with Wofford missing 10 of its first 11 from the field to open the half, allowed UNCG to go on a 13-3 run and take a 42-32 lead.
The Terriers got back to within five in a hurry, however, when Nichols converted a four-point play with 11:42 to play. But the Spartans scored the next five, including a conventional three-point play by Hines, to take it back to double-figures.
The Terriers began to cut into the lead with just over six minutes to play. Gibson's putback capped a 7-2 spurt for Wofford and cut UNCG's lead to 57-53. After Kyle Hines made one of two free throws, Wilkerson hit two at the line to cut the margin to three. A minute later, Wilkerson hit on a spin move to cut it to one with 3:39 to go to set the stage for the thrilling end.
The Spartans return home to take on Furman this Saturday beginning at 7 pm.
SIDELINES: Dwayne Johnson and Ricky Hickman did not start the game Monday for violation of team rules. Donald Moore, a third-year walk-on, received his first career start along with freshman Everson Simmons. It was Simmons' third start of the season. Johnson and Hickman checked in at the 14:07 mark of the first half... Wofford fought the foul trouble in the first half. Berg picked up his second foul at 15:31 and did not come back for the remainder of the half, while Nichols picked up his second at 6:56 and did not return until after the intermission... Hines now has 43 games of 10 or more points in his 51 career appearances. In less than two seasons, Hines is already ranked 27th on the UNCG all-time scoring list with 797 points... After committing a season-high 25 turnovers at Georgia Southern on Saturday night, the Spartans committed just five in the first half on Monday... Hickman's 20-game double-digit scoring streak is tied with Demetrius Cherry for the third longest. The only longer streaks in UNCG history were a 21-game streak by Yusuf Stewart and a 26-game streak by Robert Bryant, which spanned the length of his only season in a Spartan uniform... The overtime game was UNCG's first this season. Wofford lost to East Carolina, 70-68, in overtime back in December. The teams had played overtime once before with Wofford winning, 85-82, in the 2004 SoCon quarterfinals.
AGATE
WOFFORD 84, UNCG 78
UNCG (10-12, 3-5)
HICKMAN, Ricky 7-19 9-11 27; HINES, Kyle 10-18 7-13 27; OLEKSIAK, Kevin 4-9 0-0 10; JOHNSON, Dwayne 2-6 0-0 6; McCLENNY, David 2-7 0-0 4; SIMMONS, Everson 1-1 0-0 2; AKINOSHO, Matt 1-3 0-0 2; BECKFORD, Brian 0-0 0-0 0; MOORE, Donald 0-1 0-0 0; TOOMS, Bart 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-64 16-24 78.
WOFFORD (8-13, 3-5)
NICHOLS, Shane 4-10 6-7 18; BERG, Tyler 9-16 0-0 18; WILKERSON, Howard 6-16 2-3 14; GIBSON, Drew 2-5 5-6 10; FIELDS, Byron 2-6 5-8 9; ESTEP, Matt 2-5 0-0 6; WHATLEY, Tyler 2-5 0-0 4; SHEEHAN, Adam 1-3 0-0 3; HEGAMIN, Ralph 1-2 0-0 2; JACKSON, Marcus 0-1 0-0 0; O'CONNOR, Matt 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 29-69 18-24 84.
Halftime: Tied 29-29. 3-point goals-UNCG 8-25 (HICKMAN, Ricky 4-11; OLEKSIAK, Kevin 2-5; JOHNSON, Dwayne 2-5; MOORE, Donald 0-1; McCLENNY, David 0-2; HINES, Kyle 0-1), Wofford 8-24 (NICHOLS, Shane 4-9; ESTEP, Matt 2-5; GIBSON, Drew 1-3; SHEEHAN, Adam 1-3; WHATLEY, Tyler 0-1; JACKSON, Marcus 0-1; FIELDS, Byron 0-1; WILKERSON, Howard 0-1). Fouled out--UNCG-None, Wofford-None. Rebounds-UNCG 39 (HINES, Kyle 10), Wofford 50 (BERG, Tyler 14). Assists-UNCG 14 (HINES, Kyle 3), Wofford 20 (GIBSON, Drew 12). Total fouls-UNCG 20, Wofford 17.
- UNCG -
