Samford Says Not So Fast, Gets Road Win Over Wofford
After losing two straight, Samford looked dangerously close to dropping a third straight. However, thanks to a career high 36 points from Trey Fort, Samford gets the 76-68 win over Wofford. Samford gets their first win at Wofford since 2012 and their first since Wofford opened Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium in 2017.
Today was Samford’s 20th win of the season making it four straight seasons of 20-plus wins.
Samford outscored the Terriers in the second half 51-34 after being down nine at the halftime break. Trey Fort is the story of the day going 13-17 from the field. Fort was 4-6 from behind the three-point line and also had eight rebounds.
The ESPN broadcast mentioned that Samford head coach Bucky McMillan told them that he wanted to get Trey Fort going early with some open looks. Well Fort hit his first jumper just over two minutes in the game and never looked back.
Samford was once again struggling to get good looks on the offensive end in the first half. Samford had just one assist in the first half for a team who was 15th in the entire country in assists per game coming into today. The Bulldogs were down 34-25 at halftime and Fort had 17 of those 25. He was 6-8 from the field while the rest of the team was a combined 3-21.
In the second half, Samford came out of the gates on fire in the second half. The Bulldogs started out on an 8-0 run to cut the Wofford lead to five. After a Wofford timeout, they responded with a 9-1 run pushing the lead all the way up to 16.
With 12:20 left in the game, Wofford led 54-40. That is when Samford turned it on. The Bulldogs then went on a 17-2 run to take a 57-56 lead. Over the final 8:30, Samford outscored Wofford 19-12 to steal a victory from the jaws of defeat in Spartanburg.
Trey Fort had 36 points but it was the play of Josh Holloway that really stood out. Holloway, who was inserted back into the starting lineup, finished with 14 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals in 32 minutes. Holloway also had just one turnover.
He was deadly in the pick and roll putting the Wofford big men on an island and going to work. Samford’s senior leader Rylan Jones also had 14 points and hit some big shots throughout the entire game when Samford desperately needed it. Jones also had five rebounds, three assists, and zero turnovers.
To put it mildly, Samford needed this one desperately. After losing two straight, Samford was on the brink of dropping three straight and possibly finding themselves out of the regular season title race. Trey Fort basically said over my dead body, I will not let this happen.”
Samford’s offense and their team go to another level when Fort scores consistently. He just had 21 points combined over the last three games and Samford went 1-2.
Trey Fort, Rylan Jones, and Josh Holloway combined for 64 of Samford’s 78 points. More than likely, that will not happen often. However, Samford may have gotten their swagger back.
