Kentucky survives good battle from Wofford

Wofford's Keve Aluma (right) and Kentucky's Reid Travis (left) battle for the basketball

On the heels of breaking the career-record for three-point field goals, senior guard Fletcher Magee went 0-for-12 from three-point range, and scored just eight points, as No. 7 Wofford fell in a 62-56 game to No. 2 Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Veterans Memorial Arena.

With the win, Kentucky improves to 29-6 on the season, and will face the winner of Houston-Ohio State coming up tomorrow afternoon. The loss for the Terriers snapped a nation-best 21-game winning streak, and Wofford concludes its 2018-19 season with a 30-5 overall mark. The Terriers are the first Southern Conference member to win 30 or more games since North Carolina State did so during the 1950-51 campaign, and are just the third team to ever achieve the feat in the rich history of the Southern Conference.

Despite Magee's struggles, the Terriers came out and played well early on in the contest, scoring the first five points of the game on a jumper from Nathan Hoover and a three-pointer from senior forward Cameron Jackson, as the ball caromed high off the back iron and down back through the net for a three-pointer, as things seemingly were good at that point in the contest for Wofford.

The Terriers would build as much as a 24-18 lead late in the first half, following three made foul shots from Nathan Hoover with 4:23 remaining in the opening half. From this point, however, the Wildcats would take control of the contest, and closed the half on a 10-2 run to take a narrow 28-26 lead into the halftime locker room.

Three-straight baskets by Reid Travis, J.R. Baker, and a steal by Ashton Hagans from behind on Matthew Pegram, as he poked the ball free and went down for an un-contested layup prompted a Mike Young timeout, and tied the game, 24-24, with 1:28 remaining in the half.

Following a Storm Murphy missed jumper, Nick Richards corralled the rebound for Kentucky, and Travis was fouled on the other end. He knocked down a pair of foul shots to give Kentucky its first lead of the game, 28-26, with 1.6 seconds remaining in the half. Nathan Hoover's 70-foot heave at the buzzer just missed, and the Wildcats clung to a two-point, 28-26, lead at the half.

Wofford would assume the lead early in the second half, as Cameron Jackson, Hoover and Magee scored six-straight points to help Wofford re-assume the lead, 35-32, with 17:02 remaining.

However, Kentucky would respond with a 13-2 run to take its largest lead of the contest, at 45-37, following a Keldon Johnson layup with 12:11 remaining. Wofford would call a 30-second timeout. Following that timeout, the Terriers would slice the Kentucky lead back to four, at 45-41, on baskets by Jackson by Aluma with 10:42 remaining.

From that point, however, the Wildcats would push its lead to its largest of the day, using consecutive possessions, while holding Wofford scoreless on consecutive possessions. A three-point play the old-fashioned way by Hagans and a pair of Tyler Herro foul shots pushed the Wildcat lead to 50-41 with 8:42 left.

Over the next three minutes, Wofford would battle its way back into the game, cutting the Kentucky lead to three once again, at 54-51, following a triple by Hoover with 5:42 left. The Wildcats answered with a Herro triple, and a Richards foul shot to take the lead back to seven (58-51) with 3:38 left.

Murphy canned a three and the Terrier defense would get two stops and a Kentucky turnover. Following a Baker miss with just under a minute to play, Wofford would score its final points of its historic 2018-19 season following an Aluma layup in the paint, cutting the deficit to two, at 58-56, with 37 seconds remaining. Aluma would foul Travis on the following possession, and he knocked down a pair of foul shots with 19 seconds remaining to make it a two-possession lead for the Wildcats, 60-56.

Following a Magee missed three and a foul by the senior guard from Orlando, would be his last act of what has been a phenomenal career at Wofford. Herro knocked down a pair of foul shots to seal the final score and Kentucky's advancement into the Sweet 16.

It was the conclusion of a pair of careers for Jackson, Pegram and Magee that saw them combine to score over 4,000 points in their respective careers for the Terriers. The Terriers garnered the program's first-ever national ranking, getting as high as No. 19 in both polls, won the school's first NCAA Tournament game, and set a school-record with 30 wins, and also posted 21-straight wins.

Wofford, which shot only 37.5% for the game, had two players score in double figures, led by Hoover's 19 points, while Jackson finished out his final game of his Wofford career with 11 points and eight boards.

Kentucky got 14 points and 11 boards from Travis, while Hagans added 12. The Wildcats shot 40.7% from the field for the game.