{"id":85840,"date":"2025-03-18T10:24:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T15:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wofford-coach-dwight-perry-gets-homecoming-in-ncaa-tournament-game-at-rupp-arena\/"},"modified":"2025-03-18T10:24:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T15:24:00","slug":"wofford-coach-dwight-perry-gets-homecoming-in-ncaa-tournament-game-at-rupp-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wofford-coach-dwight-perry-gets-homecoming-in-ncaa-tournament-game-at-rupp-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"Wofford coach Dwight Perry gets homecoming in NCAA Tournament game at Rupp Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wofford<\/a> coach Dwight Perry<\/a><\/strong> is getting more than just his first experience as a head coach in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday. He\u2019s getting a homecoming at Rupp Arena in Lexington, too.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old Perry, in his third season as Wofford\u2019s head coach, played at Kentucky from 2006-09, appearing in 19 games for the Wildcats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely special,\u201d Perry said Sunday night<\/a>. \u201cObviously it\u2019s my alma mater. I have a lot of great friends (at Kentucky). It\u2019s an unbelievable place. Obviously their tradition in basketball really doesn\u2019t need any introduction. <\/p>\n

\u201cMore than anything, I\u2019m really excited for our guys to be able to continue this journey this year, for it not to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 15 Wofford, Thursday, TNT <\/h2>\n

Tennessee<\/a> (27-7) is the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region and will play No. 15 Wofford (19-15) on Thursday (6:50 p.m. Eastern Time, TNT<\/a>) at Rupp Arena in Lexington. The Vols and Terriers are opposite of No. 7 UCLA and No. 10 Utah State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perry is 48-42 at Wofford, with this season\u2019s team going 19-15 and punching its ticket to the NCAA Tournament by winning the Southern Conference championship as the league\u2019s No. 6 seed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perry started his coaching career as an intern at Stanford in 2009 and was a graduate assistant at VCU from 2011-14. He was an assistant coach at Furman from 2014-19 before being hired as an assistant at Wofford in 2019. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2021 before being named head coach in 2022.<\/p>\n

Wofford went 17-15 last season and was 12-12 under Perry in 2022-23, when he took over after nine games after former Wofford head coach Jay McAuley<\/a><\/strong> resigned in the midst of an NCAA investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Terriers went 10-8 in Southern Conference play this season, but beat East Tennessee State, VMI and Furman over three days in the Southern Conference Tournament in Asheville.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wofford is in the NCAA Torment for the sixth time in program history and has a 1-5 March Madness record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see your name called and you see your name come across that screen,\u201d Perry said of the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on Sunday, \u201cit\u2019s an awesome feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wofford won an NCAA Tournament game as a No. 7 seed in 2019<\/h2>\n

Wofford was a No. 7 seed in 2019 when it beat No. 10 Seton Hall 84-68, then lost to No. 2 Kentucky 62-56.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Terriers lost to Arkansas (56-53) as a No. 12 seed in 2015, lost to Michigan (57-40) as a No. 15 seed in 2013, lost as a No. 14 seed to BYU (74-66) in 2011 and lost to Wisconsin (59-43) as a No. 13 seed in 2010.<\/p>\n

Tennessee is 8-0 all time against Wofford, including an 82-61 win in November 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a phenomenal,\u201d Perry said of the Vols. \u201cThey\u2019re well coached. They have a Hall of Fame coach in Coach Barnes<\/a><\/strong>. Their program\u2019s track record speaks for itself. But I think it\u2019s a really cool experience for our guys to be able to play in Lexington against a great team like Tennessee and in one of the more storied venues in Rupp Arena.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Wofford coach Dwight Perry gets homecoming in NCAA Tournament game at Rupp Arena<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wofford coach Dwight Perry is getting more than just his first experience as a head…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}