ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Advancing to the SoCon finals proved too much of an Achor.

Achor Achor, 6-9, from Australia, led Samford to an 84-77 victory on Sunday at Harrah’s Cherokee Center. The Melbourne product scored 28 points and grabbed 14 rebounds.

Samford, which Furman defeated in the first regular-season meeting and lost miraculously in the second, lived up to its No. 1 seed in the rubber game.

Nothing about this one was miraculous.

J.P. Pegues, who suffered an ankle injury the night before, looked weary and perhaps a bit hampered. He still scored 22 points, but was only 4/12 from the field, 3-7 from deep.

Carter Whitt regained his shooting touch, almost alone.The Paladins played hard but not well. Samford was the better team, as advertised.

Whitt went 4/5 behind the arc and scored 20 points. Marcus Foster, who scored the first eight points of the game, finished with 12.

After scoring those eight, Furman maintained a lead until late in the first half. From that point on, it was mostly miserable. With 12 minutes remaining, the Paladins were shooting 14/42 (.333) from the field and .250 (7/28) from three-point range.

Once again, associate head coach Jeremy Growe to discuss the game with the radio crew of Dan Scott and Tom Van Hoy. Head coach Bob Richey tended to his duties in the postgame media conference.

“It’s always difficult to see it end, and I give our guys a ton of credit,” Growe said. “We went through a lot of adversity this [season], ups and downs, and this group never packed it in. We started the season 6-9, not where we wanted to be.

“We want this to stick. We want this to fuel us all spring, all summer, all fall, and put us in a better position next [season].”

Samford (28-5) took its first lead with Josh Holloway’s triple with 3:23 remaining. The Paladins, who started hot, missed 12 straight shots to allow the Bulldogs to rally. Furman committed six turnovers in the first half, the same as the game the night before.

The Bulldogs closed the first half on a 14-1 run, then shot .652 in the second half to hold off a late Furman rally and deny the Paladins a third straight trip to the championship game.

Achor converted 12/15 field-goal attempts and added three blocked shots to go with his game high in points and rebounds. Samford outscored the Paladins 42-20 in the paint and managed a 36-34 edge on the glass behind Achor’s double-double. Jaden Campbell and Rylan Jones joined Achor in double figures with 14 and 11 points, respectively.

The Bulldogs, who held Furman without a field goal for the final 10:43 of the first half to take control, shot .549 for the game and converted on 22/32 free throws, 17/22 in the second half.

Furman (17-16) shot just .344 from the field. After connecting on five of their first nine three-point tries, the Paladins finished the contest at .289 (11/38) from long range. PJay Smith recorded three of Furman’s eight steals as the Paladins forced 15 turnovers and scored 25 points off Samford miscues.

Seventh-seeded East Tennessee State (19-15) took a miraculous, overtime, 85-84, victory over third-seeded Chattanooga (21-12) after trailing by 20 points with 14:18 remaining in regulation. The Buccaneers meet Samford on Monday night at 7.

Take a look at the stats here.

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