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SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- With 2:34 remaining in Saturday's Southern Conference road showdown against the Wofford Terriers, the Samford University basketball team held a 64-55 advantage in front of 1,948 raucous fans in Benjamin Johnson Arena. It was then that Wofford's Spencer Collins took over and drained the first of two 3-point baskets in the final minutes to spark the Terriers on a final 14-0 run to close the game and earn the 69-64 home victory.
 
"We weren't locked into the game for the entire 40 minutes today and Wofford was," said Samford head coach Scott Padgett. "That's why Wofford won the game. We knew that if we were going to win, that we would have to make Spencer Collins shoot over somebody with a hand in his face. Today, he attempted five 3s and made all of them, because he didn't have a hand in his face."
 
Collins, Wofford's 6-foot-4 senior leader, scored 12 of the game's final 14 points and finished the contest with a game-high 25 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field. He also finished a perfect 5-of-5 from 3-point range and 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.
 
Samford (10-6, 1-2 SoCon), which led by as many as 11 points in the second half and nine, 64-55, at the 2:34 mark, built its lead behind aggressive full-court pressure defense. The Bulldogs forced Wofford (6-9, 3-0 SoCon) into a season-high 19 turnovers Saturday and outscored the Terriers, 24-9, in points off turnovers.
 
"We were leading by nine with 2:34 left to play, but that's not the time to celebrate," Padgett said. "That is the time to go put them away, to go get one more rebound, to make them foul and then knock down your free throws to ice the game. That's what time it is. It isn't time to celebrate and think it's over. It's time to turn it up even more, because for 37 minutes and some change, you dominated a very good team and then let it go in the final 2:34."
 
Samford also led, 38-14, in points in the paint, but Wofford drained 10 3-point field goals and shot 7-of-9 from beyond the arc in the second half.
 
"Wofford hit 10 3s today and I can tell you that they hit nine of those without anybody in their face," said Padgett. "All we talked about for three days was how we could not allow them to have any uncontested 3s. We wanted to chase them off the line and forced them to knock down some pull-up 2s. If every one of those 3s was inside the arc instead, then that's a difference of 10 points."
 
The Bulldogs were led in scoring by Darius Jones-Gibson's 17 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field. Samford's shifty 6-foot-2 guard from Lexington, Kentucky, also added three assists and two steals, while finishing 2-of-4 from 3-point range.
 
Christen Cunningham scored 13 points in a game-high 37 minutes of action for the Bulldogs, while senior Jamal Shabazz added 11 points, three rebounds and a steal.
 
Fellow-senior forward Iman Johnson turned in a strong all-around game with eight points, eight rebounds, three assists, a trio of steals, as well as a rim-shaking, one-handed fast-break dunk in the second half.
 
Wofford led at the half, 29-27, before the Bulldogs opened the second period on an 11-0 run to garner a 38-29 advantage at the 16:53 mark. During Samford's half-opening run, Jones-Gibson scored eight straight points, Iman Johnson threw down a two-handed slam and Cunningham connected on a free throw.
 
The Bulldogs maintained an eight-to-six point lead throughout a majority of the second period before Wofford used an eight-foot jumper from Justin Gordon to trim Samford's advantage to 58-55 with 5:36 left to play.
 
The Bulldogs then put together a key 6-0 run by using a pair of free throws from Jones-Gibson, a six-foot jumper from Alex Peters and two free throws from Shabazz to lead, 64-55, with 2:34 remaining in the game.
 
Down the stretch, Wofford's Collins nailed a deep 3-point basket from way beyond the NBA 3-point line and then connected on a pair of free throws on each of the next two possessions. Samford held a 64-62 lead with 1:24 left in regulation.
 
Collins, who had the hot hand for the Terriers on Saturday, knocked down another 3-point basket from long range to give Wofford a 65-64 advantage with 54 seconds remaining. Following a missed 3-point attempt from Samford's Jones-Gibson, Collins made two more free throws at the 15-second mark to make the score 67-64.
 
On the Bulldogs' final possession of the game, true freshman Matt Rose was fouled on a deep two-point jumper from the left wing. He came up short on the first one and then intentionally missed the second free throw to give Samford a possible game-tying attempt on a 3-point basket.
 
Rose's final free throw was missed, but the Bulldogs' Wyatt Walker was called for a foul to send Fletcher Magee to the line. Magee made both of his attempts to finalize the score at 69-64.
 
"We were mentally tough for most of this game," Padgett said. "But when it counted down the stretch, we backed down. It's very disappointing that we can give the effort that we gave to get where we were, but then eight to 10 plays of relaxing can make that difference. Wofford made us pay and that's what good teams do."
 
With the win, Wofford extended its SoCon regular-season winning streak to eight-consecutive games. The Terriers have represented the SoCon in the NCAA Tournament in each of the last two seasons.
 
"This is Wofford," Padgett said. "They are the champs. It's like the old Rick Flair saying, 'In order to be the man, you have to beat the man'. That's the thing, they are the champs and they're not just going to roll over and give it to you."
 
The Samford University basketball team will next be in action Monday at 5 p.m. (CST) as the Bulldogs conclude their two-game, four-day league road swing against the Furman Paladins in a matchup to be held at Timmons Arena in Greenville.
 
"Furman is a very talented team," Padgett said. "Obviously, everybody remembers the run they made to the championship final of the SoCon Tournament last year and if we want to go in there and beat them, it's going to have to be 40 minutes. In the locker room, I just challenged our team to be a 40-minute team, because 40 minutes of full-out effort would have won us this game today."
 
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