Furman 73, Chattanooga 66
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| Furman sophomore guard Mike Bothwell |
CHATTANOOGA, TENN--Furman got a career-high 27 points from Mike Bothwell, as they held off a hot-shooting Chattanooga squad, 73-66, in Southern Conference action Wednesday night at McKenzie Arena.
With its seventh-straight win, Furman improved to 14-3 overall and remained perfect in Southern Conference action, improving to 4-0. Meanwhile, Chattanooga had its four-game winning streak snapped, dropping to 10-6 overall and 1-2 in conference.
It was Chattanooga’s first home loss of the season, as the Mocs dropped to 5-1 at McKenzie Arena, while it was Furman’s sixth true road win of the season, which ranks second in the nation among all Division I schools. The 4-0 start to league play by the Paladins marks Furman’s best start in conference play since the 1978-79 season, when the Paladins began the season 9-0 in SoCon play.
Bothwell, a sophomore guard from Cleveland, OH, connected on 12-of-16 shots from the field, including going 3-of-6 from three-point range. He also added an assist and two steals. Bothwell was one of four Paladins in double figures.
Senior guard Jordan Lyons (16 pts), redshirt junior forward Clay Mounce (11 pts) and junior guard Alex Hunter (11 pts) rounded out the Paladins in double figures in the contest.
Lyons, the reigning Southern Conference Player of the Week, was able to score 13 of his 16 points in the opening half of play. The native of Peachtree City, GA, finished the night connecting on 6-of-14 from the field and was 3-for-8 from three-point range and 1-of-2 from the charity stripe. In addition to his double-digit scoring night, Lyons also added two rebounds, an assist and a steal.
Mounce added six boards, three blocks, an assist and a steal to complete another well-rounded night. Hunter added two assists and a steal to go with his double-figure scoring night.
Like Furman, Chattanooga also had four finish the contest in double figures, with Cleveland State transfer junior forward Stefan Kenic leading the way off the bench by posting 15 points on a perfect 5-for-5 shooting performance from the field, including a perfect 3-for-3 from three-point range.
Vanderbilt graduate transfer forward Matt Ryan posted 13 points, while redshirt junior forward Rod Johnson matched his season high of 12 points, which he previously established in Chattanooga’s loss at Eastern Kentucky to open the season, and added a team-leading 10 rebounds for his second double-double of his career, as well as of the 2019-20 season. Redshirt junior guard David Jean-Baptiste rounded out the Mocs in double figures with 10 points.
Chattanooga shot a blistering 72.7% from the field and was whistled for just one foul in the opening frame, yet held just 38-36 lead at the break. The Mocs connected on 16-of-22 shots from the field in the opening half, including going 5-of-8 from three-point range.
The Mocs would continue that strong shooting performance into the first five-and-a-half minutes in the second half, as Ryan’s free throw line jumper gave the Mocs a 50-47 lead with 14:38 remaining in the game, which would prove to be the final lead the Mocs would hold in the game.
Following Ryan’s jumper, Furman went on one of its patented runs, using a 14-0 run, spearheaded by eight points from Bothwell to assume a 61-50 lead following a driving layup in the lane, with 5:59 remaining.
The Mocs wouldn’t go away, however, and would get as close as four points on three occasions inside the final minutes, with a pair of Kenic free throws getting the Mocs to within 68-64 with 2:13 remaining.
However, the Paladins would get another layup by Bothwell, and a steal and dunk by Mounce to stretch the lead back out to eight, at 72-64, with 36 seconds remaining to effectively seal the road win for the Paladins.
After shooting 72.7% in the first half, Furman’s defensive performance in the second half helped cool the Mocs significantly, holding Chattanooga to just 38.5% (10-for-26) in the second half.
Quotable:
Mike Bothwell on big-game situations and the team’s overall performance:
“It’s just how our team is…We all believe in one another like I always say and I saw my team believing in me tonight and kept swinging the ball to me and getting me into the offense and I was just trying to make the shots that were there for me and we have been practicing everyday and have been in the gym a lot over Christmas break so my teammates just came out and we got a lot of stops and were able to get out in transition and that led to some open threes for me and other people were getting open so they had to respect all of us out there and we always have great post presence so the floor was pretty open for us like usual so I was just trying to do what the game was giving me.”
Mike Bothwell on the next opponent:
“They are definitely a tough team and they put us out last year in the tournament so we always know that’s going to be a big matchup…We split with them during the regular-season so we always got to try and take care of home court and we’re playing downtown so that’s a big one and we want to try and win that one in front of some folks that maybe haven’t seen us play yet, but as good as they are we just have to play how we do and focus on our team and what we do…Our focus all year has been to be a tougher basketball team and to go out and prove that you’re not going to be able to go out there and punk us on the glass and just show our toughness and show our grit and we know it’s going to be two tough teams with that same type mentality going at it and so we are going to try to be the team that delivers the most blows and see if we can come out on top.”
Bob Richey on Chattanooga’s hot start:
“They had us scrambling around and they had us rotating and they had a good game plan and they did a really good job of establishing the block and we had a hard time keeping it out and then when were trying to keep it out, they were doing a good job of playing out of that and the one thing is defensively you have to make people miss and you can’t hope people miss especially when you’re playing in their home gym and I thought especially in the first half we were just hoping they would miss and they weren’t and when you go on the road you’ve got to make people miss and that comes through pressure…that comes through being connected…that comes through understanding personnel and when they have got a guy that’s a pick-and-pop three guy you have got to know that and if you’re supposed to be in a red ball screen coverage and its supposed to be higher on the floor and you’re low and they throw it back to him he’s probably going to make it and so we had to just get into halftime and clean some of that stuff up, but I am proud of their response…I am proud of the fact they had composure at halftime when they weren’t playing great and they did what they had to do in the second half and to go on a 14-0 run and win the glass by five and to do it on the defensive end to go from shooting 72-percent to shooting 38-percent in the second half…that’s what we have to do…It was our mentality and we just weren’t as quite as crisp as we needed to be coming out and that’s on me.”
Head coach Bob Richey on Mike Bothwell’s performance:
“Mike’s a player and we all know that and we have seven starters so sometimes the challenge is that I want all seven of them out there and you have to have two out and you have to have five in and but you know we could see early that he was in a little bit of a rhythm and then you know he got flowing late and we just left him out there and we just kind of subbed around him, but Mike is big…he’s got great feel…he’s got a great shot…he has the ability to finish around the rim…he can post…he’s just a complete player and he’s just somebody that’s going to continue to get better and he’s got a lot more great shots for the Furman Paladins yet to come.”
Furman hosts its second of three games at Bon Secours Wellness Arena Saturday Night:
Furman returns to the Bon Secours Wellness Arena for a SoCon blockbuster matchup against league juggernaut UNC Greensboro (12-5, 2-2 SoCon) Saturday night as part of a downtown doubleheader Saturday night, with the Furman women’s basketball team beginning the evening with a 4:30 p.m. tip-off against Samford.
The Paladins were knocked out of the Southern Conference Tournament last season by the Spartans, as UNCG posted a hard-fought, 66-62, win in the semifinals of the Southern Conference Tournament.
The Spartans are coming off a 64-57 home setback to East Tennessee State Wednesday night at the Greensboro Coliseum. The game will mark the 37th all-time meeting in the series between the two, with the Spartans holding a slim 19-17 all-time series edge. Tip-off between the Paladins and Spartans is slated for approximately 7 p.m.
Furman won its first appearance in Greenville’s downtown arena back in December, as the Paladins posted an 80-73 win over Winthrop.
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