Furman ready to return to its hoops roots

Furman Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly

In life, timing is everything. Fresh off a school-record 25-win campaign, the program’s first-ever AP Top 25 ranking, and second appearance in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), Furman has decided to return to its roots on the college basketball hardwood for three weekend games during the upcoming 2019-20 campaign.

At a press conference held on Pepsi Terrace at Bon Secours Wellness Arena on what was a blistering hot early October afternoon, arena manager Beth Paul, Greenville Mayor Knox White, Furman Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly, and Furman President Elizabeth Davis, announced that Furman men’s basketball will return to downtown Greenville for three games in the 2019-20 season. 

Furman men’s basketball coach Bob Richey was also on hand, however, did not formally address the media, but was available to the local media to answer questions following the short presentation.

The initiative is a collaborative effort between the city of Greenville and Furman University to showcase Greenville’s team at Bon Secours Wellness Arena and has been introduced to the public for the upcoming season as “Weekends at the Well.” 

“I speak about this from the perspective of somebody who is a native of Greenville and one of those that has been a longtime member of this community and of course there are so many new people in the city who might not have that perspective but I was sitting there reflecting on something we never thought we two things would see happen again. A downtown arena and that seemed impossible, and they never thought they would see the Poinsett Hotel re-open again...it could never happen...and they never thought they would see Furman basketball downtown again..it would never happen,” Greenville Mayor Knox White said. 

“Furman has been an important part of Greenville for well over 100 years and some great things did happen in the Memorial Auditorium (Furman’s former home for hoops in downtown Greenville) and the basketball tournaments and games that were played here and they conversations that would happen and the stories that were told, but they never thought it would happen again in downtown Greenville, so thank you to everyone who made this possible and Furman University for making this happen, and I have no doubt the community will be all in on helping paint this town purple,” White added.

The Paladins will take on perennial Big South power Winthrop (Dec. 14), and SoCon powers UNC Greensboro (Jan. 11) and Wofford (Feb. 22) at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena. 

Wofford, like Furman, spent time in the AP Top 25 last season, became the first 30-win team in the SoCon since NC State in the 1950-51 season, and captured the SoCon’s first tournament win since 2008 last season, while UNC Greensboro, like Furman, won a school-record 29 games last season and will be one of the league’s top teams yet again in 2019-20. 

In an effort to capture the attention of the city of Greenville coming off its historic season of 2019-20, the Paladins will return to their roots playing in the heart of downtown, which was home to the Furman from 1958-97 at the Memorial Auditorium, which has since been demolished. 

The Paladins will play at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena, which seats almost 15,000 for hoops and was a regional site for the 2017 NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional first and second rounds, hosted by Furman and the Southern Conference. The Tournament will return to downtown Greenville in 2022.

The Paladins, of course, captured the attention of the nation last season when they knocked off a pair of Final Four Teams and were ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 for three weeks. On Dec. 1, 1958, Furman played the Jerry West-led West Virginia University Mountaineers in the first-ever game played Memorial Auditorium, although it called downtown Greenville home from 1908-1996 at two different venues. 

The perfect marriage had been forged between the city and its University, which at the time was still located in downtown Greenville before moving to its current campus location in northern Greenville County in 1959. The Memorial Auditorium was referred to as the “Big Brown Box” by many. 

Prior to Furman’s days spent at Memorial Auditorium, it played its games at Textile Hall, where Frank Selvy became the first and only NCAA Division I college basketball player to score 100 points in a game when he did so on Feb. 13, 1954. That game was the first college basketball game to ever be televised in the state of South Carolina, giving Furman an early relationship and presence with the surrounding downtown community.

Despite what was an outstanding win over the Wildcats at the Brown Box, head coach Lyles Alley’s Paladins had managed just an 11-15 overall mark in 1963-64, but enroads were being made and a foundation of future success laid brick-by-brick through the struggles of the 1960s for Furman basketball. Furman sported just two winning seasons during the 1960s, and Davidson, under the direction of James "Lefty" Driesell, were always the class of the SoCon.

One thing that was always a guarantee, however, was that the Paladins would play well on their home floor. During the 1963-64 season, for example, the Paladins had put together a decent homecourt record that season, posting what was a 6-3 mark on the home floor, including a big 70-55 win over No. 5 Davidson on Feb. 11, 1964.

In 2018-19, Furman became the first SoCon team since that Davidson team to start a season 10-0 or better.

Nearly three decades later to the day of that win over a top five team, the Paladins would take down another ranked conference foe, when they downed No. 10 East Tennessee State and Keith “Mister” Jennings, 103-94, before a packed crowd at the Brown Box.

The dates Feb. 11 and Feb. 13 have become significant milestone moments in the history of Furman basketball, and two of those monumental moments for a program that has won four Southern Conference regular-season titles and six Southern Conference Tournament crowns.

Striking While The Iron is Hot

Furman new Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly is one of those guys that just understands mid-major basketball, and the dynamics of it. He comes from Villanova, where he spent time as an Associate Director of Athletics and even spent some time as the Director of Basketball Operations on the Main Line.

He comes from a place that consistently wins, but does it in a big city with five other pretty good basketball programs in the same city competing all for a big piece of the pie. When Furman shocked Villanova, 76-68, in overtime last season, the Wildcats were reigning national champs and had won two of the last three under head coach Jay Wright. 

The Paladins also downed Loyola Chicago--another Final Four member from the 2017-18 season--and the Paladins have four starters returning from that record-setting team of a year ago. Furman will play yet another Final Four team from the previous season on the road, when it faces Auburn on Dec.5, 2019. 

“So one of my first days on the job I came down to the the Well with President [Elizabeth] Davis, myself and our university leadership and we had a chance to look around to see what this is and what I was explaining to them is that for all the success we had at Villanova we had to take some chances as well and we had to build our brand and our product,” Director of Athletics Jason Donnelly said. 

“Philadelphia is a larger city, but we’re also competing against five or six other Division I college programs in that city and it was a little bit of a shared market in that space. The difference we’re looking at for Furman is that it’s an opportunity for us to build and to grow and I described a game at the Wells Fargo Center and it was Jay Wright and John Calipari and you could hear crickets in the gym and people didn’t really understand what it was going to be, but then if fast-forwarded 15 years later it was sold out games and weekend committment, people coming in from all around the country from Chicago to New York to Florida to be a part of that tradition,” Donnelly added.

Head coach Bob Richey, who heads into his third season as head coach of the Furman basketball program and is excited to see the program take another step forward in to re-connecting with Greenville and its roots, is a big thinker/big idea type person, and a major reason for its success is the fact that wise beyond his yeards head coach has never had a limited vision for what Furman’s basketball can eventually become.

“Let’s not put limiting beliefs on this and if you’re seeing this announcement and you’re putting a limiting belief on this, you’re already trying to go against the way we’re trying to go,” Richey said.

“If you’re saying this place is too big or your going to lose home court advantage, that’s not the train of thought we’re trying to get here,” he added. 

For Furman basketball, it all seems to be part of a bigger picture idea to go back and  re-visit its roots, but at the same time blend with one of the fastest growing cities in the nation with the university in the process. Today, on the surface, it appears both of those goals have been accomplished.

Furman opens the 2019-20 season on the road against NCAA Tournament participant Gardner-Webb.