{"id":8026,"date":"2019-02-22T19:53:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T00:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2019\/02\/23\/wofford-furman-biggest-game-timmons-arena-history\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T18:43:25","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T23:43:25","slug":"wofford-furman-biggest-game-timmons-arena-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wofford-furman-biggest-game-timmons-arena-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Wofford vs. Furman Saturday: You don’t want to miss this one"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there has ever been a bigger basketball game in the 20-year history of Timmons Arena than the one between Wofford and Furman on Saturday, you won\u2019t convince the current Paladin team of it.<\/p>\n

Wofford, 23-4 on the season, comes into the 4 p.m. contest undefeated in the Southern Conference (15-0) and winner of 14 straight games, which is the longest streak in program history and second-longest active streak in the nation. Furman, meanwhile, is having quite a season of its own, having spent a couple of weeks early in the season ranked among the nation\u2019s top 25 teams and sporting a 22-5 record after winning its last six games.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Senior Matt Rafferty has been named Southern Conference Player of the Week three times this season.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Wofford-Furman game is also on the national radar. ESPN welcomed Furman to its NCAA tournament \u201cBubble Watch\u201d this week<\/a>, Mid-Major Madness featured the game in its weekend preview<\/a>, and a writer Matt Zemek of\u00a0CBB Today said \u201cthere is no better or bigger game this Saturday than Wofford versus Furman.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Furman is one victory away from tying the school record for single-season wins, and the success of both the Paladins and Terriers has led to serious speculation that the Southern Conference could be awarded an at-large berth<\/a> to the NCAA men\u2019s basketball tournament for the first time ever. The only team guaranteed a spot in the field is the winner of the league tournament<\/a>, which will take place March 8-11 at the U.S. Cellular Center in Asheville, North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Wofford captured the first meeting between the two teams this season, holding off Furman 59-54 in Spartanburg on Jan. 19. The Terriers haven\u2019t won at Timmons since 2015, and no team has gone undefeated through the Southern Conference since the 2008-09 Davidson squad led by current NBA star Steph Curry.<\/p>\n

Saturday also happens to be Senior Day, when Matt Rafferty<\/a> and Andrew Brown<\/a> will be recognized for their substantial contributions to the basketball program, which includes compiling the most wins of any senior class in Furman history.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Rafferty was named Southern Conference Men\u2019s Basketball Player of the Week for his efforts in victories over UNC Greensboro (67-57) and VMI (96-62), where he averaged a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds to go with 4.5 assists and 2.5 steals per game. It was Rafferty\u2019s third player of the week honor this season.<\/p>\n

Tickets for the public are sold out but are still available to Furman students, faculty and staff on a first-come, first-served basis.<\/p>\n

Read more at furmanpaladins.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there has ever been a bigger basketball game in the 20-year history of Timmons Arena than the one between Wofford and Furman on Saturday, you won\u2019t convince the current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}