Wofford jumped out to an early 11-1 lead and led wire-to-wire in posting a 66-54 over visiting VMI In Southern Conference basketball Wednesday evening at Richardson Indoor Stadium.
The Terriers (13-7, 5-2) notched their eighth straight home win.
Down 39-27 at halftime, VMI battled even in the second half but couldn’t generate a sustained scoring run to turn the tables.
“The second half, we competed,” VMI coach Dan Earl said. “The first half, we did not come out and do what we needed to do. In the first half they were, simply put, moving faster than us in everything they were doing. They (Wofford) are a good program. They are disciplined. They pass, pivot, catch, cut, everything very hard, and I don’t think we were ready for the speed in which they were doing it. I don’t think we competed the way we needed to until it was too late. In the second half, we were able to get some open threes and open layups, but not enough to make it interesting.”
Junior guard Greg Parham scored 16 points and grabbed five rebounds to lead the Keydets and tallied in double figures scoring for the fifth straight game.
Senior guard Garrett Gilkeson added 13 points and freshman guard Travis Evee tallied 12 points for the Keydets (6-15, 1-7).
Terrier reserves Messiah Jones and Tray Hollowell provided the big first half scoring punch to help Wofford take control early. Hollowell canned all four of his 3-point tries to spark the outburst and Jones added seven points and five rebounds before halftime.
Jones paced the Terriers in scoring with 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds including five on the offensive glass and finished with his first career double-double.
VMI held Wofford to 1-of-7 shooting to open the second half but missed five of its first six shots attempts after the break and could not trim the deficit to single digits for the remainder of regulation.
The Terriers drained 7-of-14 from beyond the arc in the first half before missing 13-of-14 from long range in the second half. The Keydets suffered a similar trend going 5-of-13 from three-point land in the first half and cooling to 2-of-14 in the second half.
Wofford held a 35-27 advantage in the boards and received 30 points scoring from its bench.
VMI returns home to face Mercer Saturday at Cameron Hall at 1 pm. It will be the second meeting in 10 days between the teams after the Bears rallied to defeat the Keydets a week ago in Macon.
Tickets are on sale at VMITickets.com or by calling 540-464-7266.
Share
AFP
