UNCGSPARTANS.COM
3-11-2019
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Against the No. 20 team in the country, UNC Greensboro men’s basketball gave Wofford everything it could handle on Monday night at the U.S. Cellular Center. Unfortunately, the Spartans were unable to come away with their second-straight conference tournament title, as UNCG fell by a final of 70-58 in the last game of the 2019 Ingles Southern Conference Men’s Basketball Championship presented by General Shale despite leading the game for more than 33 minutes.
“I’ve got an amazing team,” said Head Coach Wes Miller. “I’m as proud of my guys tonight as I’ve ever been, even though the result isn’t what we wanted it to be. I thought our guys competed. We executed a very different game plan than we’ve played all year without any practice time and a really short prep. We played our guys a lot of heavy minutes the last three days and our kids kept fighting. They’ve done it all year.
“They are a championship caliber team, but we just came up a little bit short tonight.”
The Spartans led for the entirety of the first half, as UNCG went into the halftime break up 31-27. Despite the Terriers shooting greater than 45 percent from the floor in the frame, the Spartans held off Wofford in large part because of the offensive effectiveness from sophomore guard Isaiah Miller.
Miller finished the opening frame with 14 points on 6-of-6 shooting. Additionally, senior guard Francis Alonso scored 10 points in a battle with Wofford’s talented guard.
While UNCG continued to pace Wofford early in the second half, the Terriers took their first lead with 12:37 remaining in the contest when Nathan Hoover connected on three free-throw attempts. Despite the Spartans surrendering the lead at that point, they would go back out in front by four with 11:42 left in the game when Miller drove the lane for the score.
UNCG would push its lead up to five with 6:41 remaining when freshman forward Angelo Allegri hit a jumper to move the score at 55-50.
From that moment on, though, the momentum swung entirely in Wofford’s favor as the Terriers finished the game on a 20-3 run.
The Spartans will now have to wait until the weekend to find out their fate for postseason play. While the SoCon has never had a team earn an at-large bid, UNCG has a worthy case in getting into the NCAA Tournament:
“We have a top 20 team in the nation; they’ve played like it all year. And we’ve got a couple other dang good teams. And we’ve got one here,” Miller said of the SoCon. “I think we have an unbelievable resume to get in the tournament.”
— UNCG –
