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| Jordan Lyons led Furman with 14 points |
Furman and East Tennessee State met in what was an early blockbuster matchup in mid-major basketball Saturday, and it was a matchup that saw Furman out-rebound the bigger Bucs, 41-28, using energy plays and outight winning the hustle stats en route to an important 65-56 win Saturday evening at Timmons Arena.
Furman improved to 7-0 at home with its sixth-straight win, and upped its overall record to 13-3 and 3-0 in the Southern Conference. ETSU dropped to 13-3 overall and 2-1 in SoCon play, snapping what had been a four-game winning streak for the Bucs.
The Paladins were met by a Bucs team intent on showing that last season’s 30-point win by Furman was an abberration, and for the first 10 minutes of the game, a staunch defense was evidence of that mentality. ETSU was intense, taking Furman out of its motion offense, which is focused on hard cutting for much of the half.
In many ways, it forced Bob Richey’s Paladins to find different, creative answers, while performing at a high level defensively, and that’s exactly what the Paladins did.
It was never going to be a night, which saw Jordan Lyons was going to approach 40 points like he did on New Year’s Day vs VMI, however, his performance in Saturday night’s win over the Bucs was no less important.
Lyons led the Paladins with 14 points, as he led the Paladins with 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting from the field, including going 4-for-8 from three-point land. It was another outstanding performance by the senior guard from Peachtree City, GA.
Slawson and Clark sounds like a good law firm
We all know what Jordan Lyons can do, as he showed with his 40-point effort was evidence of that in Furman’s (13-3, 3-0 SoCon) New Years Day win at VMI. It was easy to see Saturday against East Tennessee State (13-3, 2-1 SoCon) that the Paladins are much more than just Jordan Lyons.
Lyons did lead the Paladins with 14 points, and his timely threes in transition almost always seemed like daggers. Enter sophomore forward Jalen Slawson and junior guard Tre’ Clark.
On Saturday, it was ‘the firm’ of Slawson and Clark that did the business to the the league favorite Bucs. They were the real MVPs for the Paladins in the win over ETSU.
Several moments stick out vividly in the game that were pivotal in Furman’s 65-56 win over the Bucs, and both were at the heart of those respective plays.
The first that comes to mind is Slawson’s and it came with just over three minutes left and Furman leading 58-49. Slawson chased down ETSU all-conference guard Bo Hodges and blocked Hodge’s layup attempt emphatically off the glass, with the ball caroming off right into the waiting hands of guard Mike Bothwell, who then took a look down the floor and found a wide open Lyons at the right elbow. Lyons collected himself and splashed home his fourth triple of the night to give the Paladins a 61-49 lead with 3:09 left.
The energy created by that one play Saturday was palpable, and it was the kind of play that summed up the day for Bob Richey’s Paladins. ETSU came to play, there’s no doubt about that. Defensively, the Bucs had the Paladins on lockdown for much of the first 10 minutes, however, Furman hung around by playing good defense of its own.
Slawson was involved in a couple of other energy plays in the game, one of which involved him diving for a loose ball late in the opening half, and the other was a crucial three-pointer at a point in the first half, which saw Furman struggling to score and seeing ETSU’s lead approach double figures.
With the score 16-11 in favor of the Bucs, Slawson was the one player ETSU was deciding to leave open in the first half, primarily because coming into the game, he was just 45.0% shooter from the field, and just 22.2% from three-point range. The Bucs, however, had to pick their poison on this day and it happened to be Slawson.
With just under nine minutes to play in the half, Slawson hit what was one of the more crucial shots of the game for the Paladins, as he pulled up from the top of the key and stroked home a triple, slicing ETSU’s lead to 16-14. It would commence a 10-2 run over the next four-and-a-half minutes, which saw the Paladins assume a 24-20 lead following another one of those momentum threes from Lyons off a Clark steal.
Clark’s steal led to another huge triple for the Paladins, and those two plays during that first-half sequence were plays that would be deemed winning plays. After assuming the lead at that juncture of the first half, Furman never trailed again.
“Yeah Slawson…He’s definitely a game-changer for us,” head coach Bob Richey said.
“Ok I wasn’t a good player in college but I know one thing…when you play with belief and you go out there and you believe in yourself, you change how you play and you have to earn the right to play well and the deal with Slawson is he’s earned the right to play well and it’s just not like this happened accidentally…He came back after Christmas…26, 27 and 28 okay…He got 47 rebounds in practice…20 more than anyone else on our team and he was also the leading scorer in three practices so this didn’t just wow come out of nowhere so he’s earned the right to play well. At the timeout I told him they are playing off of you shoot it you’ve earned that,” he added.
Slawson scored eight points, blocked three shots, dished out a pair of assists and collected four rebounds. Clark scored 10 points, including two emphatic dunks in the second half that pumped energy into the Timmons Arena faithful, to go along with two steals and seven boards.
One stat sums up how things went in terms of hustle plays Saturday night for the Paladins. That is the Paladins, which ranked last in the SoCon in rebounding margin (-2.1) coming into the contest, out-rebounded the Bucs by 13 (41-28). Remember this is an ETSU team that led the SoCon in rebounding margin (+7.4) coming in, and had 17 offensive boards in its 74-63 win at LSU!
The Turning Point:
Furman opened the game and found ETSU’s defense to be stifiling through the opening minutes of the game. Furman fell behind by as many as six, at 20-14, in the opening half of play, as Bo Hodges converted a layup with 7:31 remaining in the half.
However, Furman’s answer was swift and to the point, as Jordan Lyons knocked down his first of four timely, crucial three-pointers on the day to make it a 20-17. After struggling through the first few minutes of the contest, the back-to-back threes on consecutive trips by Slawson and Lyons changed the game.
Lyons’ three-pointer would commence a 10-0 run for the Paladins, and give the Paladins a lead they would never relinquish. Mike Bothwell gave Furman its first lead, at 21-20, with 4:41 remaining in the half, which was followed by Lyons’ second triple, leading to an ETSU timeout, as the crowd reached a crescendo.
A third three in four trips down the floor by Slawson made it a 27-20 Paladin lead. A 22.2% three-point shooter coming into the contest all of the sudden had turned into a major weapon.
What’s Ahead:
Now in first place in the Southern Conference standings, Furman will head to Chattanooga to face one of the most improved teams in the SoCon.
Furman will look to start 4-0 in the Southern Conference play for the first time since the 2016-17 season. The Paladins head to the Scenic City winners of six-straight.
By The Numbers:
—Head coach Bob Richey picked up his 61st win as a head coach, improving to 61-22 at the helm of the Paladin basketball program.
—Furman won its 103rd game since the start of the 2015-16 season, while also picking up its 53rd SoCon win since the start of that same campaign. The Paladins improved to 54-21 against SoCon teams since the start of 2015-16, and 103-49 overall since the start of that same season.
—Furman improved to 57-11 in Timmons Arena and 58-11 in Greenville since the start of the 2015-16 season.
Link to press conference:
Coach Bob Richey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxiAs966_U&feature=youtu.be
Jordan Lyons and Tre Clark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u1et_o6p74&feature=youtu.be
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