Jan. 10, 2009

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Samford basketball team had its six-game home winning streak snapped Saturday as the Bulldogs suffered a 60-51 Southern Conference loss to the Wofford Terriers. Despite trailing by as many as 18 points, Samford trimmed the deficit to 55-51 in the second half, but ran out of time as Wofford made five late free throws.

With the loss, Samford (6-7, 1-3 SoCon) dropped its first home game of the 2008-09 season and moved to 5-1 when playing in the Pete Hanna Center. The defeat was also the Bulldogs' first home setback since falling short against Morehead State on Feb. 14, 2008.

Wofford (6-6, 2-1 SoCon) completed its conference road trip with a 2-0 record and improved to 2-5 when playing on the road. On Thursday, the Terriers earned their first SoCon victory of the season with a 69-66 triumph against Chattanooga.

In Samford's first home loss of the season Saturday, the Bulldogs looked sluggish in the first half of play and trailed Wofford 36-22 at the intermission.

"It seemed as if we thought the game started at 3 p.m., instead of 2 p.m., because we didn't show up in the first half," said Samford head coach Jimmy Tillette. "I have to give a lot of credit to Wofford. They came to play and they played well. They really hurt us around the basket and their big guys were good and seemed to be more energized than ours were."

Wofford's Noah Dahlman led all scorers with 23 points and tallied 18 of his points from the paint. The Terriers' 6-foot-6 sophomore from Braham, Minn., was 9-of-12 from the field and 5-of-9 from the charity stripe. Dahlman also added eight rebounds, four of which came on the offensive side of the floor.

Samford finished with four players scoring in double figures, but only had seven players score in the game.

"We got off to a very slow start and then we didn't seem to get our usual contribution from our bench players," Tillette said. "On Thursday, we got 10 points from Curtis West and then had a career-high 11 points from Jim Griffin, and today we didn't get that. We couldn't keep the ball out of the post and we missed some wide-open 3s."

Junior forward Bryan Friday paced the Bulldogs with 13 points and was 5-of-10 from the floor. He added three assists and finished 3-for-5 from the free-throw line in 32 minutes of action.

Samford's fellow-junior Trey Montgomery followed with 11 points and five rebounds, while sophomores Josh Bedwell and Josh Davis added 10 points apiece. Davis was 4-of-7 from the field and tallied four rebounds. Bedwell knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and extended his consecutive free-throw streak to 15 straight.

Bedwell is the leading free-throw shooter in the SoCon with a near-perfect 93.1 percentage this season.

After leading 36-22 at halftime, Wofford came out quickly in the second half and added the first four points of the period to take a game-high 18-point lead, 40-22, with 18:24 remaining.

Samford's Davis then ignited an 8-1 Bulldog run with a back-door layup. During the streak, Bryan Friday added a pair of layups and then Montgomery slashed to the goal with a running one-hander of his own. The Bulldogs finished the game with 13 layups, but missed another nine shots from close range that really hurt their chances.

"We missed a lot of layups today, especially in the first half of play," said Tillette. "We also had a lot of untimely turnovers and whenever you put those two factors together, it's not going to be easy to win. Whenever you miss layups, miss free throws and miss 3s, and turn the ball over, then it's most likely an L."

Midway through the second half, Samford continued to chip away at Wofford's lead and finally trimmed the Terriers' advantage to 55-51 following a deep 3-pointer from Montgomery. The Bulldogs' high-flying junior from Destrehan, La., nailed the long-range shot from the right flank despite having a pair of Terrier defenders in his face.

Wofford then called a timeout and Samford later fouled Dahlman to put the 75-percent free-throw shooter on the line with 54 seconds remaining.

Dahlman knocked down both of the free-throw attempts, and Samford missed its final five shots of the game as the Terriers hung on for the 60-51 victory. Wofford's Jason Dawson scored 11 points, while Kevin Giltner added 10.

The Terriers' 6-foot-5 forward from Memphis, Tenn., Tim Johnson, registered a game-high 10 rebounds, but was only 1-for-8 from the field.

"Johnson finished with five offensive rebounds and Dahlman added four for them as well, and it's hard for us to win when we give them that many second chances," said Tillette. "I thought that we defended a lot better in the second half, but by that point it was too late."

Wofford out-rebounded Samford 34-25 and turned in a 45.5 percent outing from the field. The Bulldogs shot 44.2 percent from the floor, but only knocked down 26.3 percent of its attempts from beyond the arc.

The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Monday at 6 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs continue SoCon play with a marquee matchup against the College of Charleston Cougars. The game will be televised live on CSS and will be held at brand-new Carolina First Arena in Charleston, S.C.