Wofford College is a pesky rival.

The Southern Conference’s remarkably similar Upstate members warily eye each other as if they are gunfighters squaring off at high noon in a town not big enough for the both of them. In truth, Furman (15-13, 9-6 SoCon) hosts Wofford (15-13, 8-7) in men’s basketball at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

The sun won’t hinder play inside Timmons Arena, but the Paladins and Terriers may squint at each other, anyway.

They’re forever in each other’s way, the Paladins and Terriers. Wofford shocked Furman’s championship football team, 19-13, on Nov. 18, 2023, and defeated Bob Richey’s men’s basketball, 77-67, on Jan. 27 at Spartanburg’s Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium.

The race to the Southern Conference Tournament is no exception. Furman is alone in fourth place, a game ahead of Wofford and Western Carolina (which it visits next Wednesday). Three games remain, and Furman closes out on Feb. 1 at Timmons against Mercer (15-13, 6-9).

Corey Tripp, a junior from Medina, Ohio, scored 20 points for the Terriers in that game. Furman shot .310 from the field and was outrebounded, 47-34. Tripp averages 16.0 points a game and leads Wofford in assists with 94. Dillon Bailey is the only other double-figures scorer at 11.8. Kyler Filewich, who scored 17 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the earlier Furman game, and Jackson Sivills each average 9.6 boards.

In the first game, Marcus Foster led Furman with 22 points, and Pegues and Alex Williams each had 15. Williams hasn’t played in the last three games since being suspended by Richey for “violation of team rules.”

The Paladins, Terriers and Catamounts are all in position to draw one of the tournament byes that go to the top six seeds in the 10-school conference. Mercer and East Tennessee State (14-14, 6-9) are three games behind Furman, with three to play, and two behind Wofford and WCU.

At Samford on Wednesday night, the Paladins, led by J.P. Pegues’s 33 points (and 28-point second half), fell agonizingly and regrettably short, 74-72, because the Bulldogs managed to score the final seven points in 45 seconds.

What do you do? The only option is to move along.

“We’ve got to turn the page quickly,” head coach Bob Richey said to Dan Scott and Tom Van Hoy on post-game radio. “Look, this league is brutal. We’ve got a really, really good league.

“You’ve just got to take your lessons. We won three in a row and were playing good ball. We played good ball tonight in a lot of ways, and I thought we competed. We battled.”

Are they still traumatized? Did it renew their determination? Fans will speculate. For the team, Wofford is yet another important game that could go either way. They are aware that the other team tries, too.

Richey said: “Multiple times in the game, the crowd was into it, the student section was crazy, and the noise was going, and the press was bothering us.

“We settled in all those times, and I thought we answered all those bells, and unfortunately, we didn’t make some critical plays there late to close it out.”

You live, you learn.

The game will be streamed live on ESPN+, and fans can listen to the action on The Fan Upstate at 97.7 FM and 1330 AM in Greenville, on 97.1 FM and 1490 AM in Spartanburg, or via the Audacy app.

The second meeting of the season between the Paladins and Terriers marks the 155^th all-time encounter between the rivals. Furman holds a 91-63 series lead and had won four straight meetings before Wofford claimed its win in Spartanburg on Jan. 27. Saturday will mark the first meeting between the schools at Timmons Arena since 2021 after Furman has hosted Wofford at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in each of the past two seasons. The Paladins have won five of the last seven between the teams in Greenville.

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