Last night was one of the craziest, not talked about nights in college basketball history! I have always loved the conference tournament finals no matter what conference it is. I tuned into the Furman and Chattanooga final for the SoCon conference tournament. That is where the madness went down…for Chattanooga!
Chattanooga was up by 3 with just over 23 seconds remaining in the 2nd half. Mike Bothwell hit a 3 pointer with under 5 seconds remaining to send the game to overtime. Bothwell finished the game with 24 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists in 40 minutes. He played 88.8% of the game and had 69/60/100 shooting splits. Unfortunately for Furman, he is a senior so they will not have this star guard next season. In overtime, Bothwell hit a layup with 4.3 seconds remaining. He had scored the last 13 points for Furman. However, he didn’t end up being the star! David Jean-Baptiste got the ball and brought it toward the sideline. He heaved up a shot from half court while being triple teamed…and it went in! Chattanooga stormed the court as Furman had their most devastating moment in the school’s history!
Furman had a successful season. They were 2nd in their conference and had a lot of competitive games. They won 5 out of their last 7 games! Furman’s Bothwell ended up averaging 16 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal with 48/36/83 shooting splits. Chattanooga is on to their 12th ever March Madness, hoping they can add on to their 3 all time wins in the tournament. Now, it’s not out of the relm of possibility that they do add on. Chattanooga is projected to play Providence (4 seed) on ESPN’s latest brakcetology updated this morning. While Providence has been a good team this season, they have had bad losses against Virginia and a blowout to Marquette. They are 0-2 against Villanova and 1-0 against UConn who was missing their best player, Adama Sanogo due to injury. Assuming they can’t have a bad game against a hot Chattanooga team is not guaranteed. Maybe Chattanooga could make an upset on a team like Providence in the tournament this year.
Most importantly, I love college basketball. Last year’s March Madness was the first March Madness I closely payed attention to. And last year, Oral Roberts made it to the Sweet 16 and Jalen Suggs hit a half court buzzer beater in the final 4. That is why I love college basketball. The upsets, the craziness, like what happened last night. And this happens more in March. So as the ESPN commentator said not long after the buzzer beater, March is Madness…and it’s not March Madness yet!
Chase Coburn
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