The VMI basketball team put itself in the role of woodcarvers Saturday afternoon at Cameron Hall in Lexington.
The Keydets were forced to keep whittling away.
Falling behind by 20 points in the first minute of the second half, VMI spent the next 18 minutes chipping away against Southern Conference frontrunner Wofford before giving the Terriers last-minute opportunities that let the visitors slip out of town with the 65-62 win.
“I was thrilled to death with the energy we gave in the second half,” VMI head coach Duggar Baucom noted afterward. “You just can’t dig out of a 20-point hole. We played harder and had more energy. And, Wofford is the best there is in the league.”
The first half was the Achilles heel that doomed the Keydets. With Wofford focusing on a perimeter defense that held VMI to only seven attempts from behind-the-arc, the Keydets were only able to connect on 8-of-26 field goal attempts (30.8%) in the opening 20 minutes. That deficiency allowed Wofford, who was 16-of-32 from the field in the first half, to take a 42-24 lead into the halftime break.
The Keydets started hitting some shots early in the second half, and guard Tim Marshall’s 3-pointer cut the Terrier lead to 52-41 with 13:00 left. After VMI got the deficit to single digits, Marshall connected from behind the left arc with 3:57 left that made it 60-54 Terriers.
The comeback was completed at the 1:09 mark when Brian Brown found nothing but net from in front of the VMI bench that knotted the score at 60.
Seven seconds later Wofford’s Spencer Collins hit one-of-two free throws, giving VMI possession with the opportunity to take their first lead of the afternoon.
But, a misstep on a pass at the top of the key between Julian Eleby and Jordan Weethee led to a Wofford steal and breakaway layup by Karl Cochran that put the Terriers up 63-60. After a VMI timeout, Eleby had the ball go off his foot on a dribble-drive move, and Wofford’s C.J. Neumann hit both ends of a 1+! with 13 seconds left.
Phillip Anglade scored with 3.6 seconds left to pull VMI to within 65-62, and the Keydets fouled with 2.6 second to go. Terrier John Swinton missed the front end of the subsequent 1+1, but Marshall’s desperation heave at the horn was far short despite no call on what appeared to be contact on the shot.
“There definitely was a foul,” Baucom said. “But, whether they’re going to call that at that point……?”
“The mistakes at the end weren’t what cost us the game,” Baucom added. “We thought they would cover someone else, and our guy was out of position. We had a lot of missed layups in the first half. You never know what’s going to beat you. We tell the guys everything matters and today it certainly did.”
“You can’t blame anybody at the end,” Marshall pointed out. “You never know what play is going to get you beat. We made mistakes in the first half that cost us. We need more fire from the jump when it’s 0-0.”
Brown led the VMI (8-16; 4-9 SoCon) scoring with 14 points. Weethee netted 11 points, with Marshall and Anglade each adding 9 points for the Keydets.
Cochran paced Wofford with a game-high 18 points, while Collins added 10 for the Terriers (20-5; 11-1).
The Keydets return to action this Thursday night when Furman visits Cameron Hall for a 7:00 pm tipoff.
Bill Turner
