Wofford Basketball

Fletcher Magee of Wofford College not only led his team to its first NCAA tournament victory, but he set the Division I record for most career three-pointers. Watch the video above for more about this breakout star.

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Fletcher Magee is a relatively unknown star. But after setting the Division I career record for three-pointers with 509 and producing a second-round showdown with Kentucky, Wofford's senior marksman has a chance to follow in a legend's footsteps.

Eleven years removed from Stephen Curry's memorable run with Davidson, Magee could propel a small school to the brink of college basketball excellence.

And then, millions of people would know his name.

Magee set the NCAA record Thursday during the second half of seventh-seeded Wofford's 84-68 win over No. 10 Seton Hall. He knocked down a triple―his third of the contest and No. 505 overall―to pass Oakland's Travis Bader, setting off a raucous cheer in his home state of Florida.

🚨 NEW RECORD 🚨

Fletcher Magee breaks the all-time record for career 3's with 505 & counting! 👌#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/adJfvsJVdg

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 22, 2019

Magee finished with seven threes and scored a team-best 24 points to dispatch Seton Hall.

With a shade over seven minutes remaining, Wofford trailed 60-59. Magee's triple sparked a decisive 25-8 run in which he connected on a trio of three-pointers. That ability to take over a game is simply one of several striking similarities between Curry and Magee.

Both players led their program to a Southern Conference championship. Both players stood atop the nation in three-pointers for a single season―while hitting at least 40 percent of them. Both players will have faced a No. 2 seed in the second round.

Longtime Wofford coach Mike Young has acknowledged the similarities.

"I've been in this league a long time, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say Steph Curry's the best player the SoCon's ever seen," he told Chris Dortch of The Athletic in 2017. "I don't like to compare players, but in terms of Fletch's ability to score and do it as efficiently as he's doing it, from all points on the floor, let's just say it reminds me of someone."

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Fletcher Magee was ON FIRE for @WoffordMBB! #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/AxK3cY9Kwh

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 22, 2019

That praise is merited. It will also be quickly forgotten if Magee and the Terriers don't advance.

Up next for Wofford is Kentucky, which put together arguably the most impressive showing of March Madness' Day 1. John Calipari's squad cruised to a 79-44 win over 15th-seeded Abilene Christian, which knocked down just five threes.

Unconventional though he is, Magee is fully capable of wrecking UK on the perimeter.

Fletcher Magee, the ultimate no no no no no no yes shooter

— Jonathan Wasserman (@NBADraftWass) March 22, 2019

Heading into the Big Dance, the Wildcats ranked 223rd in three-point defense. This season, seven opposing players have drilled at least five threes, and Kentucky is 3-4 in those games. Magee has buried five-plus trifectas 20 times as a senior.

Incidentally, Curry connected on five-plus threes during each of Davidson's three March Madness victories in 2008.

Sure, Magee isn't doing this alone. Wofford boasts the country's second-best clip from long distance, largely thanks to Magee and Nathan Hoover, a 45.7 percent shooter from long range who hit four threes Thursday. Curry didn't have a perimeter sidekick of that caliber.

Fletcher Magee is incredible.. The kid runs one way then turns & fires in an instant.. Nathan Hoover is almost the same.. Wofford is fun.. #MarchMadness

— Rob Carlin (@RobONEMaryland) March 22, 2019

But the Calipari-coached team knows its biggest threat.

Wofford will go as Magee does.

Kentucky―which may again be without star forward PJ Washington because of a sprained foot, per Alyssa Lang of the SEC Network―will do everything it can to slow Magee. After all, he's previously taken down a giant; Magee netted 27 points in the upset of North Carolina in Chapel Hill last season.

Yes, the 'Cats will likely be favored, and nobody would be surprised if the powerhouse program topples the SoCon champions. That's what second-seeded teams are supposed to do in March.

However, they can only prepare so much for the greatest three-point weapon college basketball has seen in a decade. He isn't just a volume shooter; he's exceptionally efficient while hoisting more than 10 threes per game. He's the driving force of a potential Cinderella story.

Wofford is fully capable of beating Kentucky. And if that happens, he'll no longer be the cult hero compared to Steph Curry.

The nation will know him as Fletcher Magee.

            

Statistics courtesy of KenPom.com or Sports Reference, unless otherwise noted. Follow Bleacher Report writer David Kenyon on Twitter @Kenyon19_BR.

The seventh-seeded Wofford Terriers held off the 10th-seeded Seton Hall Pirates 84-68 in the first round of the 2019 NCAA men's basketball tournament on Thursday, and it's all thanks to a big performance from senior Fletcher Magee.

Magee led the Terriers to the program's first-ever tournament victory with 24 points on 7-of-14 shooting. All seven makes came from three-point range: 

That big night helped the fourth-year guard make history:

History for the Wofford star#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/Q0V5JmAu8A

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 22, 2019

Magee's final trey of the night came with 3:11 to play and extended the Wofford lead to double digits.

Meanwhile, Seton Hall star Myles Powell responded to a quiet first half (four points) with a 23-point outburst in the second:

That included 17 points in the first nine minutes and eight seconds out of the break.

But Powell couldn't carry his team to the finish line. After the Pirates cut the deficit to a single point with less than five minutes to play, the Terriers went on a 17-0 run over the next four minutes to pull away for good.

Win or lose, both Magee and Powell put on quite the show:

Fletcher Magee and Myles Powell. LET’S GO!!

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 22, 2019

Wofford will now face second-seeded Kentucky on Saturday for a spot in the Sweet 16.

Fletcher Magee made history in Thursday's 2019 NCAA men's basketball tournament game between the Wofford Terriers and Seton Hall Pirates.

With his third three-pointer, Magee passed former Oakland Golden Grizzlies guard Travis Bader for the most career three-pointers (505).

The odds of Bader keeping his record through Thursday were slim to none. Magee averaged 4.6 made threes on 10.7 attempts heading into the tournament, and he was bound to have a green light in such an important game for the Terriers.

Seton Hall also ranked 139th in three-point defense, allowing opponents to shoot 33.6 percent from beyond the arc.

College basketball fans have known about Magee's long-range prowess for a few years. Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller profiled him in December 2017.

The 6'4" guard finished the 2017-18 season with 148 made threes—at the time, the fifth-most in a single season. He's since surpassed his own mark, with 151 threes and counting entering the Big Dance.

Now, Magee is the gold standard for long-range specialists at the college level.

The Wofford Terriers pulled a stunner Wednesday night and downed the No. 5 North Carolina Tar Heels 79-75 at the Dean E. Smith Center behind a game-high 27 points from Fletcher Magee.

The win was Wofford's first-ever against a team ranked in the Associated Press Top 25.

When you beat a Top-25 program FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SCHOOL HISTORY!!!#Wofford #ConquerAndPrevail 💯 pic.twitter.com/k5iUDLwB57

— Wofford Terriers (@WoffordTerriers) December 21, 2017

It was also a coming-out party of sorts for Magee—who has been flying under the radar even though he entered the night averaging 24.1 points per game on 59.0 percent shooting from the field, 57.8 percent shooting from three and 84.2 percent shooting at the rim, per Hoop-Math.com.

All told, the junior guard went 10-of-23 from the field, including 4-of-12 from three, in Wednesday's upset.

"This is not something where he's just playing well and he's had a couple of good weeks," Wofford head coach Mike Young recently told Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller. "He works like a dog to be a great player, and he is being rewarded for the work that he puts in. He is an immensely talented young man."

Forward Cameron Jackson joined Magee in double figures, piling up 18 points, nine rebounds, six blocks, three assists and three steals as the Terriers moved to 8-4 on the season.

The Tar Heels countered with 23 points from point guard Joel Berry II and 17 from junior sniper Luke Maye, but they shot a lackluster 36.4 percent from the field and 7-of-25 from three overall as a team.

North Carolina was also incapable of summoning the stops necessary to facilitate a second-half rally after Wofford took a 14-point lead with 13:31 remaining in regulation.

The defending national champions will look to get back on track Saturday when they meet in the CBS Sports Classic at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans.

On the other hand, the Terriers will enjoy nine days off before they aim for a sixth straight win on Dec. 30 against UNC Greensboro.

Editor's note: Fletcher MaGee's unbelievable scoring display continued on Wednesday night as he put up 27 points on 10-of-23 shooting to lead Wofford to a huge upset over No. 5 North Carolina 79-75. It's the type of performance and victory that will finally put MaGee into the national spotlight he deserves.

"I've been doing this for 33 years, and I have never seen anything quite like this."

Wofford head coach Mike Young has had the privilege of watching Fletcher Magee play college basketball for the past three seasons. He has seen Magee working his tail off morning, noon and night, drenched in sweat on a daily basis to become the shooter that he is today.

And even Young sometimes can't find the words to describe the play of his junior shooting guard from Orlando, Florida.

"You get in your little fishbowl, and you're kind of oblivious to all things around you except your team and your next game," Young told Bleacher Report. "But our athletic department sent something out on social media the other day about his offensive numbers through 10 games. So help me God, I had to sit down to try to digest what I was looking at."

Join the club, Coach.

These numbers are incomprehensible.

Magee is shooting 54.9 percent from three-point range and has averaged 4.7 made triples per game. No one in the past 25 years has come anywhere close to that combination of efficiency and volume. Even if we decrease those numbers to 46.8 and 3.6, respectively, it has only been done seven times in the past quarter-century—the last of which came in 2007-08.

He is averaging 24.3 points per game and has a true-shooting percentage of 75.2 while attempting 8.5 triples per game. To put that TS% in proper context, Buddy Hield's mark when he won the Wooden Award was 66.5. Doug McDermott's best season in that category was 67.8 percent. And Stephen Curry—whom we'll discuss more later—maxed out at 64.0.

Just for good measure, Magee is also a perfect 32-of-32 from the free-throw line. (His true shooting percentage would be in the 80s if he were getting to the line more than 2.7 times per game.) But 32 straight freebies is nothing close to his personal record in practice.

"So, I've made 144 free throws in a row," Magee told Bleacher Report. "Threes, I've only made 29 in a row. That's the most. I'm normally moving around, though. I think I could probably make more, but I don't really work out like that."

What's the secret to becoming arguably the most lethal shooter in college basketball history?

Hard work.

Repetition.

And YouTube.

"I have watched a lot of J.J. Redick film on YouTube," said Magee. "Seeing how he reads things and seeing how he gets open. LeBron [James] is my favorite player, but I've definitely studied Redick's game the most."

Cue up just about any Wofford possession and it's easy to see the similarities between the little-known Terrier and the former Blue Devil who ranks No. 2 in career made three-pointers in collegiate basketball.

Magee is constantly moving, and his teammates are always ready to set back screens and pindowns to help him get open. He'll often start a possession on one of the low blocks before darting around multiple picks to find an inch of space on the perimeter at the opposite elbow. And just like Redick, that inch of space is all he needs, because Magee can catch, spin (in either direction) and shoot in the blink of an eye.

SAY HELLO TO FLETCHER MAGEE, @MARCHMADNESS!!!! 💯💯💯#SCTop10 #ConquerandPrevail pic.twitter.com/5cvGrQ2fvG

— Wofford Terriers (@WoffordTerriers) December 7, 2017

You practice like you play, and it's readily apparent from his fluidity and accuracy that the hours upon hours Magee spends working on these moves are paying off.

"It's not just standing around and shooting it," Magee said. "I'll practice coming off a screen this way a certain number of times, practice coming off a screen another way a certain number of times. Shots from my left hand, shots dribbling from my right hand. And I'll imagine there's a defender in my face when I'm shooting and I have to change my arc, just to try to make every shot as game-like as I can."

"I have never, one time, discouraged a shot from him," Young said. "Every shot that he takes looks like a quality shot. He's balanced, even when he's off balance, because he practices all of those shots in preparation for those moments."

One of those big moments came on Dec. 6 against Georgia Tech.

Magee had been hot all night. He had drained seven three-pointers and scored 33 of Wofford's 60 points. No teammate had scored more than eight points. So with the game tied in the final seconds, everyone in the building knew who was taking the shot. Curtis Haywood II was aggressively guarding Magee several feet beyond the three-point arc.

It didn't matter. He took one crossover dribble, squared his shoulders and nailed the game-winner, finishing with eight made threes and tying his career high with 36 points.

The best part of that clip isn't the shot, the fans going wild or the dejected look on the face of every Yellow Jacket. It's the fact that the play-by-play announcer didn't even sound surprised. Jason Patterson called that 26-foot, last-second three-pointer like he would have called a layup midway through the first half, because that's just how commonplace Magee's incredible shots have become over the last three years.

"This is not something where he's just playing well and he's had a couple of good weeks," Young said. "He works like a dog to be a great player, and he is being rewarded for the work that he puts in. He is an immensely talented young man."

We've already compared Magee to Redick, but there's another three-point legend who needs to be mentioned.

It was one decade ago that Curry's rise to superstardom began. He had put in countless hours of hard work long before the 2007-08 college basketball season, but that's when the unheralded recruit from a no-name school in the Southern Conference became a must-watch spectacle. With help from a four-game run in the 2008 NCAA tournament, Curry set the NCAA record for made three-pointers in a season, draining 162 of them.

That record is in danger of being broken by another young man from the SoCon.

Curry averaged 4.5 made triples per game when he set that mark, but Magee is averaging 4.6 through his first 10 games. And unlike at a Duke or a Kentucky where you should expect some regression to the mean once conference games begin, SoCon play might actually boost Magee's numbers. Two games each against Samford, The Citadel and VMI would help any scorer's point total, and Western Carolina, East Tennessee State and Mercer have each had a lot of difficulty defending the deep ball this year.

Based on his previous two seasons, it's not that shocking to see Magee on pace to make history. He shot 47.9 percent from three-point range as a freshman. After an offseason with a couple of ankle sprains and groin pulls that kept him from consistently working out, he came back as a sophomore and "only" shot 42.3 percent from downtown.

This summer, there were no injuries. When he went back home to Orlando, Magee played pickup with a lot of professionals. And they always played with the NBA three-point line, which helped improve the range of a shot that was already killer.

"When I came back to college in the fall, the line just felt closer," Magee said. "It felt like I could shoot it off a little bit and it would still go in because I was used to shooting it from a little farther distance."

So, how do you guard a guy who is always moving, who can stroke it from well beyond the three-point line and who is unselfish enough to get his teammates involved if you focus too much attention on him?

His coach is thrilled that's not his problem.

"I'm glad I don't have to consider defending Fletcher," Young said. "That would cause me to lie awake at night."

And while coaches lose sleep over the impossible task of slowing down Magee, he's probably in the gym in the middle of the night, draining another 100 buckets over imaginary defenders.

                                   

All quotes obtained firsthand. Statistics courtesy of Sports Reference.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.

The Wofford Terriers shot three-pointers like they were going out of style Monday night against the VMI Keydets, connecting on 17 of 21 attempts from behind the arc and breaking a Division I record in the process, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Their 80.9 percent mark was the best by any team attempting a minimum of 20 shots from downtown in a single game. Wofford easily won the matchup, 92-60, and has not lost to VMI since 2001.

Freshman Fletcher Magee was responsible for most of the makes, sinking a career-high nine three-pointers on 10 attempts en route to a career-high 34 points. He is 13-of-14 from three-point range over his past two games.

The guard credited his teammates for the hot shooting, per the State. “If I got the ball and got a shot up, I felt like it was going to go in,” he said. “My teammates did a great job getting me the ball. We made a couple early and then we all started to feel it. It was fun.”

SportsCenter shared highlights from the record-breaking shooting performance:

Wofford mens basketball shooting 17-of-21 from behind the arc is @notthefakeSVP's best thing he saw today. https://t.co/bxYTpDXT31

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 9, 2016

Wofford Athletics provided a postgame image of Magee, who was all smiles:

MBB: Man of the hour Fletcher Magee on with @WoffordRadio postgame. #ConquerAndPrevail #DefendTheBen pic.twitter.com/8kV2aMER0V

— Wofford Terriers (@WoffordTerriers) February 9, 2016

The Terriers' three-point field-goal percentage went from 40.1 to 41.8, which puts them in the top 10 in the nation. The sharpshooting has helped the team from Spartanburg, South Carolina, to an 8-4 Southern Conference record after finishing nonconference play just 4-9. The Keydets lost for the 11th time in 12 league games and sit in last place at 6-17.

Even if the season doesn't produce an NCAA tournament berth, the Terriers—and especially Magee—will have a story to share for the rest of their lives—one that involves a lot of scoring.

Jeremiah Tate, a Wofford College guard who was heading into his junior year, drowned Monday after jumping off a bridge to go for a swim. He was 19.  

"The entire Wofford College family is devastated and saddened today by the loss of Jeremiah Tate," director of athletics Richard Johnson said in a statement released on the school's athletics site. "Jeremiah was such a dedicated, loved and respected member of the men's basketball team. He had a wonderful personality and had many friends on campus extending outside of the athletic department. Our thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences are with his family. He will truly be missed."

Johnson, who was serving as a counselor at the YMCA's Camp Thunderbird, jumped 30 feet off of the Buster Boyd Bridge in Lake Wylie, South Carolina, and into the water with another counselor at 2 a.m. Monday morning, per Tony Burbeck of WCNC. While the other counselor was fine after the leap, Tate did not resurface and rescue teams were immediately called, Burbeck reported.

Rescuers eventually found Tate's body 120 yards from shore two hours later. 

“We’re heartbroken,” Molly Thompson, senior director of communication at the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, told Erin Bacon of the Charlotte Observer. “We’ve got grief counselors here to support our staff with prayers and love and whatever we can at this point.”

Tate appeared in 13 games across two seasons during his basketball career at Wofford. He scored his only career basket in a Feb. 10, 2014 game against Hiwassee College, playing a high of nine minutes. The Wofford release also notes his accomplishments off the court, which included being a nominee for the Allstate Good Works Team that honors student-athletes who make a difference in their communities.

Tate is survived by his parents, Frank and Carole Tate.

Follow Tyler Conway (@tylerconway22) on Twitter.

March is the time of year the best in college basketball rise and make their case to be a part of the 68-team NCAA tournament field. Not only are the games a crucial part of the tournament, the back stories that highlight the players are as fascinating as some of the games themselves.

This year, one of the most compelling stories comes from a player who won’t play a single minute during the 2014 NCAA tournament, but he did all he could to make sure his team had a spot in the field.

Wofford Terriers senior forward, Aerris Smith, gave one of the most inspiring postgame interviews after his team clinched the Southern Conference tournament title and an automatic berth to the big dance after beating Western Carolina 56-53. The speech has made its round on various websites and sports talk radio shows across the U.S. since then and made Smith an overnight sensation in the process.

Smith came into the 2013-14 season fresh off his junior campaign where he averaged a career best 24.7 minutes per game and was on track to play as much, if not more heading into his senior year.

A knee injury he originally suffered in practice that Smith said he thought nothing of at first turned into something bigger.

“I was at practice, got hit, and originally thought it was just bumped knees, nothing really serious, but later that night it really started to swell, to the point where it was very difficult to bend it or walk on it,” Smith explained about his injury. “That’s when I went to the doctors the next day to get it checked out and get an MRI to see if there was more than just a bruise or swelling.”

After affirming his injury was serious he faced a difficult decision: Get surgery now and maybe miss the entire season or tough it out and make the best of his knee in its current state. He chose the latter.

“Basically when I found out about the injury I had two options. One was to have surgery and sit out more like half the year so I could recover and get back into shape or I could play through it and maintain my strength,” he said. “Immediately, as soon as I heard I could play I wanted to do that and be able to stay on the floor to help my teammates out.”

Staying on the floor was easier said than done for Smith, as for him to play a far more reduced role than in his previous season, Smith would have to put in extra hours of physical labor to ensure his knee was in playing shape.

With his knee condition, Smith’s knee would get weaker faster than normal, so finding ways to work his knee out without hurting it more, Smith turned to a non-conventional method to keep his knee in good enough shape to play.

“One of the other things was when I could practice, some would last 30 minutes while others could last two hours and even longer depending how my knee would act that day," Smith said. "One of the things I had to do every morning at 6-6:30 (a.m.) is go to my local YMCA and go swimming. That put no pressure on my knees at all and it was a great way to maintain my cardio. So if I did have a practice where I could go 30 or 35 minutes, I didn’t feel bad because I still put in the work for that day, I still would be in shape to play for that game.”

Smith’s labor of love paid off, as he was able to play in all but one game for the Terriers this season, averaging 8.8 minutes per contest, something he attributes to all the work he put in outside of the court.

With the uncertainty that came with his injury, he put so much effort into making sure he could play this season was largely in part to him not knowing when he career could come to a sudden halt.

“I’ve been told this for years; you never know when your last game is going to be," Smith said. "I was fortunate enough to have this injury and still play. One of the things that really drove me was going into every game I didn’t know if it was my last game or not.”

Every step of the way his teammates had his back and always made sure that he was in good spirits has he pushed through his injury, something that helped inspire his journey.

“Every day in practice and every day in the locker room they would ask how I was doing and make sure I was OK," he said. "Even my coaches and my family all supported me, so it was very easy with their support.”

As the final seconds of his final game ticked away Smith didn’t think about his college career coming to an end, he thought about just how proud of his team he was.

“Basically what was going through my head was that we finally did it. We’ve earned this. We deserve this,” Smith said. “I have seen what this team has done day in and day out in practice and the way they played and the way these coaches have believed in us from Day 1, and it was the best feeling to know that we finally got something that we really deserved.”

After the game when Smith gave his now infamous speech, where Smith grabbed four rebounds in 10 minutes of action, he said he was speaking in the moment and had no idea the effect it would have in the days to come.

“Honestly I was completely shocked. I want to say the next day I had a few of my fellow peers walk by and say ‘We heard your interview, it was great,’ and I thought that was just going to be the end of it,” Smith stated. “Then I started to receive messages, emails and calls from everywhere, from all over and it was just overwhelming. I was so surprised and so shocked because in my interview I was just expressing how I felt at the time and never expected any of this.”

Smith is scheduled to travel with Wofford to its second-round matchup against the Michigan Wolverines to be held in Milwaukee, Wis., on Thursday to offer the support he has fought so hard to give the team this season.

With all that Smith has been through during the course of the last year the lessons he learned that he can reference later on down the road are the ones that stand out the most.

“The biggest thing I will take away is that this whole injury is that it really has opened my eyes about toughness and never giving up and just perseverance to push me through anything,” Smith said. “This year has definitely been a difficult year for me, basketball and everything, mentally and physically it was very draining."

Mick Akers is an analyst for Bleacher Report and all quotes were obtained firsthand via phone interview.