Former Wildcat Dwight Perry could lead Wofford to the NCAA Touranment tonight

It’s Championship Week. Kentucky’s SEC Tournament run doesn’t start until Thursday, but tonight, a former Wildcat could lead his team to the Big Dance.

Dwight Perry’s Wofford Terriers take on Furman in the finals of the Southern Conference Tournament tonight in Asheville (7 p.m. ET, ESPN). Perry, who played for Kentucky from 2006-09, is in his third season as Wofford’s head coach. Last night, the No. 6 seed Terriers beat No. 7 seed VMI 85-65 to advance to the championship. Furman, the No. 5 seed, knocked off No. 1 seed Chattanooga in the game prior.

If the Terriers win tonight, they’ll advance to the NCAA Tournament for the sixth time in program history. You probably remember their last appearance. Led by Fletcher Magee, Wofford made it to the Big Dance in 2019, beating Seton Hall in the first round to face Kentucky in the second. The Cats took care of business in Jacksonville, holding Magee to 0-12 from three-point range en route to a 62-56 win.

Six years later, the Terriers are one win away from punching their NCAA Tournament ticket again. Perry knows a thing or two about the Big Dance. In 2007, he started Kentucky’s first NCAA Tournament game vs. Villanova in the United Center in Chicago instead of his cousin Bobby Perry because the coaching staff incorrectly filled out the starting lineup card. Instead of taking the technical foul for submitting the wrong lineup, the staff let Dwight Perry start alongside Randolph Morris, Joe Crawford, Ramel Bradley, and Derek Jasper and instructed him to foul a Villanova player immediately so they could sub him out. He did, allowing his cousin Bobby to check into the game. Kentucky went on to beat the other Wildcats 67-58.

“One of my former teammates, (ex-UK star and former NBA player) Jodie Meeks, always jokes about it, that I started more NCAA Tournament games our freshman year than he did,” Perry told Mark Story in 2023. “That really would have been bad (had UK lost).”

Perry finished his Kentucky career with five points over 19 games in three seasons, making the SEC Academic Honor Roll in two seasons. He got his coaching start as an intern at Stanford and joined Shaka Smart’s staff at VCU, where he earned his master’s degree in sports leadership. From there, Wofford hired him as an assistant coach in 2019. Two years later, he was promoted to associate head coach and in December 2022, was thrust into the role of interim head coach when Jay McAuley stepped down. After Perry led the Terriers to a win over Texas A&M in College Station and the SoCon Tournament quarterfinals, Wofford removed the interim tag.

Now, Perry has the Terriers just one win from the NCAA Tournament. We’ll be cheering for them tonight vs. Furman.