HOMEWOOD, Ala. – It wasn’t the prettiest of basketball games, but it was one that Samford Bulldogs head coach Bucky McMillan was grateful his team played in against a top-20 defense in the country in the UNC-Greensboro Spartans.
“Buckets won't come easy. It's going to be slimy and grimy,” McMillan said. “And I'll be real with you. I kind of like those games a lot when it gets like that. You get to really see what you’re made of. It's not necessarily about basketball. It's just how physical, how hard can you play, can you win those games, and I’m glad to do it.”
In the end, Samford did end up winning that style of game, a 76-69 victory on Saturday, Jan. 11 in a battle of the last two undefeated teams in the SoCon.
And as a result, the Bulldogs sit alone in first place of the conference and extended their winning streak at the Pete Hanna Center to 28 games, the second-longest in the country behind only UConn.
“This game's never going to be the prettiest game.” McMillan said. “It's just two heavyweight fighters going at it, and I was really proud of how we won that game. You’ve got to be (able) to win different ways. Sometimes, it's going to be spacing, a lot of spread deal and very little contact and crazy up-and-down, and some games, it’s just going to be bone-on-bone the whole game. That's kind of what that game was, but we need to prove we could win a game like that, and we really did.”
Rylan Jones finished with 16 points and six assists, Collin Holloway had 14 points and six rebounds and Riley Allenspach made it four Samford players in double figures with his 13-point night.
However, it was Trey Fort who led the way with a game-high 21 points, and he provided the early spark for the Bulldogs offense, hitting a pair of 3-pointers to start the first half.
Despite that, UNC-Greensboro took the fight to Samford in the early minutes and grabbed the 9-6 lead off a Kenyon Giles four-point play just as the under-16 timeout hit with 15:52 remaining in the first half.
A milestone moment started the Bulldogs response as Holloway got a tough layup for his 1,000th career point. He entered the game with 999 points and added a free throw shortly after to tie the game.
That set up Rylan Jones to make a 3-pointer to give Samford a 12-9 lead, one that the hosts built into a two-possession lead going into the next media timeout to take control of the game.
After the defenses led the way for the next few minutes, Allenspach flipped a switch and went into takeover mode.
The Charlotte native scored off a turnover to take the lead to nine and then capitalized off the momentum from a Lukas Walls deep shot with another layup off a Spartans miscue. His success carried to behind the arc as he answered a Donovan Atwell 3-pointer with one of his own.
That helped Samford go up 30-20 with 3:18 remaining in the half.
Fort hit a step-back to keep the Bulldogs rolling, but UNC-Greensboro started cutting into the deficit with three late baskets.
However, Holloway helped Samford take a 36-28 lead into the break thanks to a layup with 53 seconds to go in the half and a buzzer beater down low.
The Bulldogs burst out of the locker room with a 13-5 run in the opening 3:45 of the half. Fort got the team going with a pair of baskets before Holloway and Jaden Brownell each hit a 3-pointer to go up 48-33 and force a Spartans timeout.
That lead ballooned to 16 after Jones made a big 3-pointer and the Spartans got called for a 10-second violation with the Pete Hanna Center crowd roaring.
UNC-Greensboro didn’t go away quietly though. The visitors used a Malik Henry dunk and an Akrum Ahemed and-1 to make it a single-digit deficit once again with 13:08 remaining.
After hanging around for a few minutes longer, the Spartans went unconscious from the field, making eight straight shots capped off by back-to-back Atwell 3-pointers and cutting the gap to just five with 6:21 to go.
Fort stepped up and made a layup to get the momentum back in Samford’s favor. Brownell and Jones then provided the dagger as Brownell blocked a shot before Wells found Jones for a fast-break 3-pointer, restoring the 10-point lead with 4:41 left.
That shot put UNC-Greensboro away for good as the two teams exchanged free throws down the stretch and the Bulldogs secured the seven-point win.
After the game, Jones said that the team took the lessons from the last game against VMI to heart when the team didn’t start well and let the Keydets hang around. From the under-12 timeout in that game on, he believes this has been motivated to never let that happen again.
“At the start of the VMI (second) half, we were lax and not playing the definition of Bucky Ball, right?” Jones said. “And he challenged from that time out, and that time out and then throughout this 40 minutes, we really took it personal and we got be, as he likes to say, the baddest, toughest dudes, hardest playing dudes that are on the court, all 13, 14 of us that get into the game, and we took that to heart, and that's you got to be to win high-level tough games, and that's what every game in the SoCon is, and you got to be, that determined, that resilient and play that hard and be the hardest-playing team every night if you want to win.”
Fort agreed with Jones and said that this is just the first step in their ultimate goal of repeating as SoCon champions.
“Don't let up,” Fort said. “Never get complacent with what we’re doing. Just get better each and every day. Don't come in thinking we can just let up and get soft on us. We haven't done anything. This is the beginning, and we have to continue to grow and get better each and every day so that we finally achieve something. This is nothing.”
The Bulldogs will hit the road to face the Mercer Bears on Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. before returning home to the Pete Hanna Center to face the ETSU Buccaneers on Saturday, Jan. 18 at 5 p.m. The game against the Bucs will be nationally televised on CBS Sports Network.
Article by Andrew Simonson. Follow his work on X and Instagram @andrewtsimonson.