The Annual Upstate Road Trip

Wofford (8-6, 1-1)

College of Charleston (10-3, 2-0)

BenJo Arena, Spartanburg, SC

Tipoff at 7pm on ESPN3

The only time I've seen the Terriers play this year was earlier today when I watched the first half of the snoozefest between them and Wake Forest. Like many of the teams in the Socon, Wofford is in rebuilding mode with the loss of some of their best players. Noah Dahlman and his goofy free throw shooting. Gone. Tim Johnson and his posters. Gone. All thats left from the back-to-back Southern Conference champions is fifth year senior Brad Loesing. Coach Mike Young has some talented freshman, but until his team gels together they will be relying primarily on their defense to win games. 

The Terriers are limiting their opponents to just 62.1 points per game on 42% shooting. On the year the Cougars are averaging 74.2 points on 46% shooting offensively. The Terriers play mostly man-to-man defense and are really good at rotating and doubling the ball handler. That second one could cause trouble for the Cougars. Having the big men set picks on the perimeter is a major part of our offense. If Wofford can risk leaving the big man open and put two bodies on either Lawrence or Stitt, they'll get some takeaways.

The image of our point guards crouching over as two Louisville players form an eclipse over them still haunts me... We'll need to do a better job of finding the open man when this situation inevitably occurs. That goes for Trent as well.

Offensively, none of the Wofford players are particularly intimidating. Loesing can ball and has really stepped up this year. Kevin Giltner averages 16 points a game but he has been in a funk recently (a combined 5-20 from three point range in his last two games). Loesing will find open men, but the team no longer runs plays through the post like they did with Dahlman. 

I've talked a lot this season about our front court and I will continue to do so for the duration of the conference season. Look for those guys to have solid games as the talent level of conference forwards takes a noticeable drop from what we've seen out of the BCS schools (plus GMU). No more huge, beefy towers guarding the paint. With out-of-conference play over, Adjehi and Trent will now be going against mostly Matt Sundberg clones under the basket. 

Only one Terrier averages more than 5 boards a game. Meanwhile Baru, Wiedeman and Wiggins all average more than that. Speaking of Adjehi, he's really been coming on as of late. He had that near double-double against Coastal and really found his groove against Mason before foul trouble took him out of the game early. Wiedeman (and Willis Hall, from the bench) will emit a sigh of relief by not having to face Dahlman anymore. I expect Trent to give us his usual 11 and 8 type of performance. And then there's Mr. Wiggins, who always has good games against Woffy. They've never really had anyone who could matchup with him.

This is the first road conference game for the Cougars and they will face Furman just two days later. These types of away games are always tough but I know the coaching staff always puts an emphasis on winning the Socon games above anything else. Lawrence, Wiggins and Wiedeman were all on the floor in Chatty last year when Wofford captured their ticket to the Dance, so I hope they come out with a chip on their shoulders. Go Cougars!