A Wild Finish as Samford Outlasts Mercer
Someone tell Dwight Schrute from The Office that the Mercer bear is not best (we all know it’s black bear). Samford somehow finds a way in a wacky and wild finish in a 75-74 game. Samford has now won six of the last seven games against Mercer avenging the loss from last year in Macon.
Samford did not make a field goal over the last nine minutes and 12 seconds of the game to get the one point victory. Samford had possession in a tie game with 25 seconds left, the Bulldogs are working to get the final shot. In the middle of the play, Samford guard Rylan Jones slips, loses the ball and Mercer is going the other way.
Trey Fort races down the floor and gets the massive chase down block (yes it was all ball, per usual) and it is Mercer ball with 1.8 seconds left. After a timeout, Mercer’s Jah Quinones attempts to inbound the ball off of Jaden Brownell’s back. Rylan Jones gets possession and is proceeded to be fouled by Quinones as time expired. Officials went to the scorer’s table and put 0.9 back on the clock.
The hero of the night has to be Trey Fort who made the massive block to keep Samford in position to win this game
Jones makes the first free throw to give Samford the one point win. This was an improbable ending from the likes that have not been seen before. Samford is now 5-0 in SoCon play, incredible.
Samford battled through foul trouble in the first half but found a way. Samford was up by three at the end of the first half and that was with Collin Holloway, Josh Holloway, and Trey Fort had two fouls.
Every Bucky McMillan team and especially this one can beat you in many different ways. Sure, three-point shooting is fun when you make a good number of them. Samford made just five threes tonight as a team as they average 11.8 per game which is third in the entire country before tonight. Samford did lead in paint points with 42 compared to Mercer’s 20. On the defensive end, they did hold Mercer to 37% from the field.
In the pre-season, Bucky McMillan told local media that Collin Holloway needed to take the Jermaine Marshall mindset that “every rebound is mine.” Well Holloway did that tonight and earned Samford some big extra possessions taking advantage of Mercer’s lack of size. He finished with 11 points and seven rebounds.
By no means did Samford play their best game but they found a way. It is games like these that prepare you for March and especially in the SoCon, road wins are hard to come by.
