No. 1 Samford 84, No. 5 Furman 77
 
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – No. 1 seed Samford may have the nation’s fourth highest-scoring offense (86.9 ppg), but it was the Bulldogs’ suffocating defense that keyed a 84-77 semifinal victory over No. 5 Furman Sunday evening at the 2024 Ingles Southern Conference Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina.
 
Samford (28-5), who is ranked No. 11 in the CollegeInsider’s NCAA Division I Mid-Major Top 25 poll, advances to the SoCon Championship Game Monday night against the winner of the No. 3 seed Chattanooga and No. 7 ETSU.  Tipoff will be at 7 p.m. ET, with an automatic NCAA Tournament berth at stake. The Bulldogs will be looking for their first SoCon tournament title in men’s basketball since joining the league in 2008.
 
Head coach Bucky McMillan’s Bulldogs pierced the 100-point mark five times this season–including a school-record 134 points against VMI on Jan. 13–but it was their full-court press and swarming man-to-man defense that turned the tide against the Paladins.  Harassed all night, Furman shot only 35 percent (21-of-60) from the field and 29 percent (11-of-38) beyond the arc.
 
Achor Achor, the Bulldogs’ top scorer (15.1) and rebounder (5.7) this season, was virtually unstoppable, scoring a game-high 28 points and gathering 14 rebounds.  Achor shot a torrid 80 percent from the floor for the game, drilling in 12-of-15 attempts.  Jaden Campbell (14 points) and Rylan Jones (11) were the only other Bulldogs in double digits.
 
JP Pegues led the Paladins with 22 points, while Carter Whitt scored 20 and Marcus Foster added 12.
 
Zooming out of the gates, Foster scored the first eight points of the game, giving Furman with an early 8-0 lead.  Showing no signs of fatigue from Saturday night’s 79-76 overtime win against Western Carolina, the Paladins continued to play well in the first half. At one point, a Ben VanderWal second-chance layup gave Furman its largest lead of the game, 23-14, at the 10:44 mark. 
 
However, Samford’s full-court, man-to-man press eventually took its toll. A Josh Holloway 3-pointer with 3:24 left in the half gave Samford its first lead (30-28) of the game and the Bulldogs finished with a 20-5 flurry to take a 34-28 lead at intermission.  Achor led Samford’s first-half comeback with 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting and seven rebounds.
 
The Bulldogs, whom enjoyed a school-record 17-game winning streak earlier this season, have now won three straight and 10 of their last 12 games.  Their 28 wins are the most in school history.  Samford has not made a NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000.
 
RECORDS:  No. 1 Samford 28-5, No. 5 Furman 17-16
 
STATS TO KNOW

• By virtue of its win over Furman, Samford has dethroned last year’s Southern Conference Tournament Champion.  The Paladins edged Chattanooga, 88-79, in the 2023 finale.
• This is the first time Samford has been the No. 1 seed since joining the league in 2008.
• Samford entered this week ranked fourth nationally in bench points per game (34.47 ppg), fifth in 3-point percentage (.398), fifth in fast-break points per game (15.90) and sixth in turnovers forced per game (17.0).  

 
******
 
No. 7 ETSU 85, No. 3 Chattanooga 84 (OT)
 
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – No. 7 seed ETSU’s Cinderella story continued Sunday night as the underdog Buccaneers overcame a 20-point deficit to beat No. 3 seed Chattanooga, 85-84, in overtime in a remarkable semifinal game at the 2024 Ingles Southern Conference Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, N.C.
 
Trailing 84-83 with 15 seconds left in overtime, Bucs forward Karon Boyd scored a layup off a lob pass from Allen Strothers for the winning basket. 
 
ETSU orchestrated its second straight improbable win and will now face No. 1 seed Samford in the SoCon Tournament Championship Game Monday night at 7 p.m. ET, with an automatic NCAA Tournament berth at stake.  The Buccaneers registered a 73-62 upset victory over No. 2 seed UNCG in Saturday’s quarterfinal game.
 
In a game where four players fouled out, ETSU (19-15) rode the 27-point heroics of Quimari Peterson to victory.  Peterson, who buried five 3-pointers on the night, joined teammate Ebby Asamoah to tally 31 combined points in the second half to send the game into overtime–a game in which Chattanooga had once led 54-34.  It was Peterson who made the decisive plays at the end of the second half, sinking two free throws with 39 seconds left and then tying the game, 79-79, when he converted a layup one second left.
 
While Peterson earned the headlines, team-leading scorer Ebby Asamoah (15.4 ppg) overcame foul trouble to contribute 21 points on 8-of-16 shooting in only 21 minutes. Asamoah picked up his fourth foul barely two minutes into the second half, but  scored 18 points in the second half. He fouled out with 4:38 remaining, but not before he had sank five 3-pointers, bringing his total to 99 for the season which is third place on the school’s all-time single season list.
 
Chattanooga enjoyed a balanced scoring arsenal, with Jan Zidek (26), Trey Bonham (19), Honor Huff (16) and Sam Alexis (11) leading the way.  Bonham, a first team All-SoCon pick, also led Chattanooga in rebounds with 11.
 
ETSU pulled the upset despite only shooting 33 percent (26-of-79) from the field and 64 percent (21-of-33) from the foul line.  However, the Bucs got 26 more shots up from the floor and won the rebound battle, 52-41.  ETSU’s defense caused 16 turnovers with 10 steals.
 
RECORDS:  No. 3 Chattanooga 22-11, No. 7 ETSU 18-16
 
STATS TO KNOW

• ETSU extended its winning streak to five games and have won six of its last seven.
• ETSU has played 12 games this year decided by three points or less. The Bucs are 7-5 in those contests.
• Chattanooga dominated in points in the paint, outsourcing ETSU 36-26.

 
 
2024 Ingles Southern Conference Men’s Basketball Championship
Friday, March 8 (ESPN+)
Game 1 - (8) Mercer 84, (9) The Citadel 76
Game 2 - (7) ETSU 98, (10) VMI 66
 
Saturday, March 9 (ESPN+/Nexstar)
Game 3 - (1) Samford 70, (8) Mercer 57
Game 4 - (7) ETSU 73, (2) UNCG 62
Game 5 - (3) Chattanooga 75, (6) Wofford 57
Game 6 - (5) Furman 79, (4) Western Carolina 76 (OT)
 
Sunday, March 10 (ESPNU)
Game 7 - (1) Samford 84, (5) Furman 77
Game 8 - (7) ETSU 85, (3) Chattanooga 84 (OT)
 
Monday, March 11 (ESPN)
(1) Samford vs. (7) ETSU, 7 p.m.