Murphy's late winner advances Wofford to SoCon final, 72-70

Mar 9, 2020, 01:51 am

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Storm Murphy scored 15 points including the winner with 3.1 seconds left, Tray Hollowell added 12 more on a quartet of 3-pointers and Wofford narrowly eliminated Chattanooga 72-70 in the Southern Conference Tourney semifinals on Sunday night.

The seventh-seeded Terriers face No. 1 seed East Tennessee State for the SoCon tournament title Monday.

In a battle that saw 12 ties and nine lead changes, Ramon Vila put the Mocs ahead with 8:27 left in the game and Chattanooga, despite six ties down the stretch, never surrendered the lead ... until the bitter end.

Gaining possession after turnover, Murphy pump-faked and got his defender to jump, then launched a 16-footer for the win. Chattanooga's desperation shot from mid-court was off.

Messiah Jones added 11 points for Wofford (19-15), which was fresh off an upset of SoCon power Furman in Saturday's quarterfinals. Chevez Goodwin added 10 points and blocked three shots.

Vila scored 19 points and had seven rebounds for the sixth-seeded Mocs (20-13). Matt Ryan added 16 points with four 3-pointers and Maurice Commander added 13 points.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com