By MONTE DUTTON

ASHEVILLE, N.C.  – Winning the Ingles SoCon Men’s Basketball Championship requires hustle and bustle. It requires the touch of a poet and the toughness of a prize fighter. The tournament matches its home.

Asheville may have more automobiles papered with bumper stickers, per capita, than any city in America. I stopped in my tracks Sunday reading the broad range of opinions expressed on a single Subaru. The same vehicle was pro-Trump, anti-war, pro-weed and anti-guns. This city takes all kinds, and so does its hoops tournament.

It’s 7:30 Monday morning. The final – Furman versus East Tennessee State – lies ahead. I can’t sleep, but  I still need coffee. I’m going to a Waffle House.

Be right back.

The task is not over.

The poet was and is Alex Wilkins. In the second half of Sunday night’s 81-75 victory over UNC Greensboro, the freshman from Mattapan, Mass., made me want to visit there to see what’s in the water. He made me think of old black-and-white footage of Pete Maravich at LSU or Walt Frazier at Southern Illinois.

Because I’m that old. Because I saw it when I was a kid.

The prize fight was the first half when, as Bob Richey admitted later, “They beat us up. They were more physical.”

UNC Greensboro (15-19) led, 38-27, at halftime.

“They did it to us in the first half,” said Charles Johnston. “We had to be more physical.”

In the opening half, Wilkins was as mortal as everyone else. The Spartans led every second except for the first 17 when the game was tied.

All that remains between Furman and a trip to the NCAA tournament and an eighth SoCon championship is the No. 1 seed, East Tennessee State (23-10), which similarly came off the deck to upend Western Carolina, 69-67.

While Wilkins was playing a latter half of near-perfection – ending up with 34 points, five assists, four triples, six twisting, turning forays into the lane and 10/10 free throws — Cooper Bowser (14 points), Johnston (nine points, six rebounds) and Ben Vander Wal were absorbing the slings and arrows and giving as good as they got.

When the final horn sounded, the sole veteran of Furman’s 2023 title, Vander Wal, was in possession of the ball. He didn’t hit a shot but hit the floor time and time again. In the second half, Cooper Bowser and Johnston both spent a while on the hardwood clearing out their heads after absorbing swinging elbows.

Wilkins wrote the poems. They fought the war.

The halves were as different as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 A.D.) and those of the Roses (1455-87). Furman shot .346 (and .125 from deep) in the former and .727 (.667) in the latter. UNC Greensboro, which had advanced past VMI and Wofford, shot well both halves.

Furman opened the second half on a 17-5 run and took its first lead at 44-43 on Asa Thomas’s triple with 12:13 to play. The lead changed hands four times over the next five minutes before Wilkins converted a driving layup with 7:15 to go to put Furman in front 58-57. The basket was part of a stretch of eight consecutive makes from the field for Furman that helped the Paladins build a 66-60 lead when Cole Bowser popped a three with 5:04 to play.

Four times in the final minutes, UNCG cut the lead to three points, and Lilian Marville hit a three-pointer with 14 seconds left that brought the Spartans within two. Each time either Wilkins or Eddrin Bronson replied emphatically and immediately.

Wilkins tickled the strings and the masses. More clad in purple will be needed Monday night because the top-seeded Buccaneers are as sure to bring throngs across the mountains as Furman is likely to bring them up from the rolling Upstate hills.

Wilkins matched Jonathan Moore’s Furman single-game freshman record of 34 points, established in a loss to Georgia on Dec. 15, 1976. Wilkins also surpassed Moore’s freshman scoring record of 561 points in 1977 and had the most points by a Paladin in a SoCon Tournament game since Roy Simpson popped 36 in a championship-game loss to East Carolina in 1972.

Cooper Bowser didn’t miss a shot (6/6). Wilkins (10/10) and Bronson (6/6) didn’t miss a free throw.

“Remember when we couldn’t shoot free throws?” Richey asked.

On this night, Furman converted 22/25.

Cooper Bowser finished 6/6 from the floor to score 14 points while Bronson added 12 points on a 6/6 performance at the foul line.

Forward Justin Neely scored 27 points on 9/12 shooting to lead the Spartans, but the nation’s leading rebounder was held to five boards after grabbing 24 in the quarterfinal round. Marville scored 20 and K.J. Younger 15.

Richey and UNG’s Mike Jones were graceful and complimentary to each other afterwards. Each won on the other’s home court during the regular season.

“We knew what it was going to be like,” said Jones. “We knew they’d make a run. They responded the right way.”

ETSU has won five times in six previous tournament pairings with the Paladins, the most recent being in the 2018 semifinals. The two have never before played in the championship game.

Furman’s quarterfinal victory over Samford was elegant. Sunday night was a bruiser. What will Monday night bring? Something that isn’t easy.

Take a look at the stats here.

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