ASHEVILLE, N.C. – They’re at wit’s end in nearby Cullowhee. Furman eliminated Western Carolina in overtime at the Ingles Southern Conference Men’s Basketball Championships for the second season in a row, 79-76, on Saturday night.

Once again, J.P. Pegues was the culprit for the Catamounts and Braveheart for the Paladins.

The junior from Nashville is a hero in Asheville. Pegues was the SoCon tournament MVP a season back, when the Paladins won it.

Pegues pumped in 28 points. He hit 9/21 shots and 6/11 from bonus distance. He also grabbed four rebounds, dished off three assists and made a steal.

Marcus Foster scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds. PJay Smith went 5/5 from the field  – two of them triples — for 12 points.

Western Carolina (22-10) scored 42 points in the former half, 27 in the latter and seven in overtime. The Catamounts shot .586 from the field in the first half, .423 in the second, .429 in overtime and .500 overall. Furman shot .500 in the first, .367 in the second and .800 (4-5) in the extra.

“All credit to them,” said Smith to Dan Scott and Tom Van Hoy on Furman radio. “They were just hitting everything (early). I think they were shooting 72 percent in the first three or four to eight minutes. It was hard. We were playing hard, trying to make stops, and they were hitting everything. I decided I had to step up to challenge and stop my man. It was just contagious, and everybody stepped up the intensity.”

To wit: The Catamounts cashed in 8/15 three pointers in the first half and 0/4 the rest of the way.

The Paladins (17-15) advance to face No. 1 seed Samford (27-5) in the semifinal round on Sunday afternoon in Asheville. Tip-off at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center is slated for 4 p.m. and the contest will be televised live on ESPNU.

Western’s Vonterius Woolbright is the SoCon Player of the Year. He is impossible to stop, but the Paladins contained him. His 11 points matched a season low, but he handed out nine assists and grabbed 10 rebounds.

“[Woolbright] is the engine,” Smith said. “They’re going to go as far as he goes. I think we did a great job, especially containing him – Will (Alex Williams) and Mark (Marcus Foster), especially – and making it difficult for him.”

The Catamounts sizzled at the start, taking an 11-3 lead in the first three minutes, but Furman pulled to within one on Cooper Bowser’s slam-and-one at 14:17.

Furman finally tied it at 25, but it was short-lived. In the first half, the Paladins stopped Woolbright and few others. With 3:21 remaining in the half, Western Carolina was shooting .621 from deep and .727 overall. Woolbright was scoreless but with seven assists as Furman often played a triangle-and-two with the intent of stopping him.

 A Pegues triple at 1:10 whittled the Cats’ lead to three, and Smith’s triple brought them within 2 (42-40), at halftime. Woolbright had two points. Pegues had 15 for Furman. The Catamounts’ Kamar Robertson had 11.

Furman shot .500 both inside and outside the arc. Western mustered .586 and .533, respectively. Woolbright had seven of the Cats’ nine assists. Hien had three of the Paladins’ nine. Furman forced five turnovers and committed two. WCU led, 16-10, in rebounding. Furman had exactly one offensive rebound. Furman outscored the Catamounts, 12-2, in the final 3:23 after once trailing by 12.

Pegues kept Furman within a decent range with 12 points, hitting four of his first six three-pointers. Late in the half, the Paladins went back to man-to-man.

Pegues tied the score with 19:17 remaining. Western, for all its virtuosity from the field, missed its first four free throws. Two Pegues free throws gave Furman its first lead at 18:13. Colin Granger made WCU’s first free throw but missed the second, giving the Cats a 45-44 edge with 16:12 remaining. After the radio/TV break, Pegues hit 1/2 at the line, and it was tied again.

A Pegues three-point play put Furman up, 55-51, with 12:21 left. Richey gave Pegues a brief rest, and Western Carolina promptly tied it on two Bernard Pelote free throws. Pegues returned at 10:26.

D.J. Campbell’s fast-break bucket produced the fourth second-half lead change,

Trailing 67-63 with under 2:30 to play in regulation, Furman pulled within two points when Foster converted in the paint and the Catamounts were whistled for a flagrant foul off the ball. Garrett Hien missed both free throws, but the Paladins got the ball under the basket and Foster converted a short-range opportunity in the paint to knot the game at 67.

Pegues fired a pass down the lane to Hien for a go-ahead layup with 38 seconds to go. Hien’s chance at a three-point play missed, and Woolbright finished at the rim with under 30 seconds left to tie the game. Carter Whitt’s last-second, driving layup rolled off the rim, and overtime commenced at 69 points apiece.

Pegues’ opening shot of overtime missed, but Furman got the offensive board and Smith made the first of four consecutive shots to finish the game for the Paladins.Tied at 76-76 with under one minute to play in the extra period, Pegues picked out Whitt under the basket for an uncontested layup to retake the lead.

Furman’s defense got a stop on the other end, but Western Carolina forced a 10-second violation with 24.3 seconds left. Woolbright missed his shot in the paint and Foster was fouled. He converted on 1/2 free throws, and the Paladins won the scramble for the ball as time expired after Russell Jones’ attempt at a game-tying three-pointer missed.

Furman committed just six turnovers and registered 15 points off 13 Western Carolina miscues.

Kamar Robertson led the Catamounts (22-10) with 17 points. Tre Jackson added 15 and Woolbright the aforementioned 11.

The triumph marked Furman’s fourth straight in the league tournament and sixth in its last seven. The Paladins have gone to overtime in four of their last eight games in the tourney.

Furman split the regular season series versus Samford by winning 78-68 in Greenville and losing 74-72 in Homewood, Ala.

Head coach Bob Richey, obligated to the post-game media conference, sent top assistant Jeremy Growe to postgame radio in his stead.

“If you watched these games all day, they all felt like semifinal games,” Growe told Scott and Van Hoy. “The crowd tonight. The energy in here was unbelievable. Western Carolina’s a really good team to draw in the first game. We knew we had to bring it. … We needed every second, didn’t we?

“Think about last year’s run. There’s going to be one half where we don’t play well. … There’s going to be a defining moment where your back’s to the wall, and you’re going to have to respond. We needed to respond, and give our guys a ton of credit.”

Of 6-11 freshman Cooper Bowser, Growe said, “That kid is just scratching the surface. Our backs were to the wall when he made two blocks on one play. He’s gotten so much better this year, so much better, so much more confident out there. We needed him, and he gave us a huge, huge lift off the bench.”

Furman committed just six turnovers in 45 minutes, forcing 13 and scoring 15 points off them to WCU’s seven.

It was a fierce, thrilling game called loosely but consistently by the officials. Tempers flared. Players scrapped for balls, and several, notably Pegues and Alex Williams, went down hard. Pegues turned an ankle and didn’t leave the game. He played 38 gallant minutes.

The Paladins prevailed by the thinnest of margins.

Take a look at the stats here.

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