MARCH 11, 2010 ISSUE
ASU Basketball Coach Peterson’s First Season Back Ends Without SoCon Title
Buzz Peterson led the Mountaineers to the Southern Conference championship game in the first year of his second stint as men’s head basketball coach. Photo by James Fay
Andre Williamson posted the second double-double of his career with 12 points and 12 rebounds in Monday’s SoCon Championship loss to Wofford. Photo by Keith Cline Buzz Peterson’s first season back as the ASU basketball coach didn’t end with a dance.
The Mountaineers were one win away from earning a third trip to the NCAA tournament, but couldn’t get past the Wofford Terriers last Monday, March 8.
Wofford won its first Southern Conference tournament championship with a 56-51 win at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte. The Mountaineers were the highest scoring team in the conference but shot only 29 percent in the finals.
Wofford earned the conference’s automatic bid to the tournament and it’s the school’s first berth.
For a while, it looked like the Mountaineers would get blown out of the game. Wofford led 21-5 in the first half and were up as much as 18 points in the second half before the Terriers went cold. ASU got back into the game as Wofford was held without a bucket for almost 10 minutes.
“We were frustrated in the beginning and it affected the way we responded in the second half,” said junior Andre Williamson, who led the team with 12 points and 12 rebounds. “We came out and kind of got ourselves on our feet in the second half but it was a little too late.”
The season, though, was a good one for the Mountaineers.
After going 13-18 the year before, the Mountaineers have a 22-12 record. They’ll wait until after the NCAA tournament field is set on Sunday to see if they have a chance to make one of the other postseason tournaments (the National Invitation Tournament, the College Basketball Invitational and the CollegeInsider.com Tournament).
Last year the Mountaineers finished third in the North division of the conference and this season they won that division.
ASU advanced to the tournament final with wins over The Citadel (71-61) and the College of Charleston (77-54).
“Hats off to Wofford,” said Peterson, who guided the Mountaineers to an NCAA tournament berth in 2000. “They just did a really good job of taking us out of everything we wanted to do offensively and knocked us off our cut. We couldn’t get by them on dribble penetration. They did one heck of a job on the defensive end.”
Kellen Brand, who scored a career-high 37 points in the semifinal game, and Donald Sims, who was named Southern Conference Player of the Year by the media, were named to the all-tournament first team.
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