Furman finds its shooting touch to snap losing skid against oldest rival
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| Furman's Alex Williams pours in 26 points to lead the Paladins to their first win of 2024 |
How would Furman respond to the debacle in Chattanooga, which saw it shoot its lowest field goal percentage (27.4%) and amass its lowest point total (58) of the season? By putting together its best shooting performance of the campaign, connecting on 55% from the field, including 50% from beyond the arc en route to a 14-point, 82-68, Southern Conference win over arch-rival The Citadel Wednesday night at Timmons Arena.
Furman started its 13th different lineup of the season in its midweek Southern Conference home opener against The Citadel, it was the 13th different configuration of players that saw the Paladins play some of their best basketball of the season, getting back to the identity that has one of the winningest teams in the Southern Conference and mid-major basketball over the past eight seasons, and as a result, handed the Bulldogs a third-consecutive league loss to open SoCon play.
The win saw the Paladins improve to 7-9 overall and 1-2 in league play, while the Bulldogs fell to 8-8 and 0-3 in league action. In a classic battle of strength-on-strength it was the Paladins' offense that won the night against a stingy The Citadel defense, as Furman ended a drought of four-straight games finishing with less than 80 points--it's longest such drought since the end of non-conference play in 2021-22--and were able to hand the Bulldogs its third-straight game of allowing 80 or more points to open league play. In 13 non-conference games, which included a 65-45 win at Notre Dame, the Bulldogs had allowed just one, which was in an 86-71 loss at College of Charleston last month.
The win helped Furman claim its 10th in the last 11 meetings with the bitter rival, and also helped avenge the Paladins' 69-65 setback in Charleston last season, which was its lowest scoring total of the regular season in 2022-23 campaign, and was also the second lowest overall of the entire season.
Furman notched its 104th win at Timmons Arena since the start of the 2015-16 season, which is tied with UNCG for most in the league. The Paladins also improved to 57-8 against league foes last home during that same span.
Furman got back to scoring the basketball in a variety of different ways against the Bulldogs, and it was all hands on deck for the Bulldogs defensively for the first nine minutes of the game, as the Paladins used a barrage of threes in the opening nine minutes of the game to take out the brunt of its frustrations over the past four games, which saw the Paladins connect on just 18-of-111 (16.2%) from three-point range.
Furman opened Wednesday night's SoCon rivalry game between two charter members by canning eight of its first 12 from deep, including four-straight in one stretch of the opening half, with three coming from Alex Williams and the other from JP Pegues, eventually forcing The Citadel head coach Ed Conroy to burn a timeout to cool momentum, with the Paladins having taken a 13-point, 33-20, lead midway through the opening 20 minutes.
The 4-for-4 effort from beyond the arc in that single stretch of four-straight possessions helped fuel confidence for two of Furman's three top scorers this season. It would be part a game-high 26 points from Williams, who was 5-for-5 from three-point land in the opening half, as he scored 16 of his game-high 26 in the opening 20 minutes.
His 5-for-5 effort was part of a 9-for-18 effort for the Paladins in the opening half of play, as the Paladins played some of their most attractive offensive basketball since their Dec. 14 double-overtime loss at Tulane. It was hard to believe that same duo went a combined 1-for-19 as a part of a 4-for-33 effort from long-range in Saturday night's road loss at UTC. His seven triples in the game were a career-high.
All told, Williams finished the night connecting 9-of-15 shots from the field and was 7-of-9 from three-point land. The junior from Cincinnati, OH, also added four rebounds, three assists and a steal.
Pegues main assignment Wednesday night was more of a defensive one, as he was asked to take Bulldogs leading scorer AJ Williams and holding him to 11 points on 5-of-16 shooting from the field, holding him to five points under his scoring average in what was his first game back in the lineup after missing a couple of games with a shoulder injury.
Pegues finished the night in double figures, adding 10 points, six assists, four rebounds and one steal in 32:52 time on the floor tonight. Williams and Pegues were two of the five Paladins to finish the contest in double figures. Furman's Ben Vander Wal, who garnered his first start of the 2023-24 season, recorded his best offensive game of the season, posting a season-high 10 points, while PJay Smith Jr. finished as the third Paladin with 10 points in the win. Garrett Hien added 11 points, three rebounds, a pair of assists and a steal off the bench.
Carter Whitt was outstanding in almost 35 minutes of floor time, dishing out a career-high tying 10 assists, which he has accomplished two other times in his career, while also posting five points, two steals and a block.
The Citadel finished the night with four players scoring in double figures, with Madison Durr finishing with a team-leading 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting from the field, including going 1-for-1 from three-point land. Durr, a SoCon All-Freshman selection in Ed Conroy's first season at the helm, also added four rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals in the loss.
Vanderbilt graduate transfer Quentin Millora-Brown added a double-double, with 14 points and 13 rebounds, while Elijah Morgan finished with 15 points, despite an 0-for-7 performance from long range. The Citadel's leading scorer, AJ Smith, who just returned to the lineup from a shoulder injury following a three-game absence, rounded out the Bulldogs in double figures with 11.
As a team, Furman had 28 assists on 33 made baskets, marking its second-highest assists total of the season, with the 33 helpers in a 100-58 win over Bob Jones last month. The Paladins posted their their ninth game with 80 or more points this season and recorded its eighth game with 10 or more threes in a game.
The Paladins ended the night by connecting on 55.0% (33-of-60) from the field, including shooting 41.9% (13-for-31) from beyond the arc.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, finished the contest shooting at a 46.7% () clip from the field, including a just an 18.8% (3-for-16) effort from three-point range.
The Paladins and Bulldogs finished the night tied on the glass (30-30), while the Paladins owned significant advantages in bench scoring (23-2) and total assists (28-11). The Paladins also owned slight advantages in points from turnovers (12-11) and fast-break points (5-4), while the Bulldogs owned advantages in points in the paint (46-38) second-chance points (9-7).
How It Happened:
Following the first consecutive double-digit losses in the Bob Richey era, which dates back to the start of the 2017-18 campaign, as the Paladins lost back-to-back league games on the road to UNC Greensboro (L, 68-79) and Chattanooga (L, 58-73), head coach Bob Richey and his elite staff went back to the drawing board, simplified things and diagnosed the discernible breakdown following a performance was would have been easier for the coaches and players to have forgotten had it not been necessary to learn an important lesson from it.
"What we did...and I'll be honest with you...A lot of times after those losses you think I just come in here and the old picture of coaching and just yelling and all this stuff that didn't go well and can't make a shot...I woke up early Sunday morning and I didn't sleep well and obviously we got in late and I decided to watch our Chattanooga game from last year at Chattanooga and I wanted to compare to because we went up there last year to Chattanooga with our back on the wall and I wanted to see just the response and I wanted to see how we played and how we looked and what the ball movement was like...and it was incredible to see the trust and the dependence on our system and our concepts that that team had last year with an NBA player out there and another three-time all-league player out there and how much easier the game looked...you know...and last year we were down 13-6 up there as well just like we were this year and so we came in here on Monday and at 13-6 we just watched the game clip-by-clip of last year and this year side-by-side," head coach Bob Richey said following Furman's 82-68 win over The Citadel.
in truth, it was easy to see the team had it's identity back, as the ball snapped around and the ball actions and cutting were crisper for an extended amount of time since maybe the Belmont game. Furman looked like a confident basketball team again, and its decisions were made without hesitation, creating space that it didn't have in its first two league games of the season, which is why shots started to fall--one after the other--and the team looked like the team the coaches and media projected it to be, rather than one that went lost three-straight and connected on just 18-of-111 threes in the past four games. Furman's 13 makes in 40 minutes Wednesday night in Timmons Arena nearly equaled its total in its previous 160 minutes of hoops.
The Paladins came out and took the game to The Citadel early on. A new starting lineup for the 13th time this season, which featured Ben VanderWal, Tyrese Hughey, Alex Williams, JP Pegues and Carter Whitt made up the starting five against The Citadel, and it was one that helped the Paladins get out of the gates quickly in the contest.
Coming off its worst shooting performance and team scoring performance of the season, it was little surprise when the floodgates opened early Wednesday evening for the Paladins en route to its best shooting performance of the season, as the Paladins would go on to a 55% shooting night before it was all said and done.
Despite winning the opening tip, the Paladins would turn the ball over on its first possession, and that would lead to the Bulldogs first and only lead of the night, as Madison Durr, who finished the night leading the Bulldogs with a team-high 17 points, coasted in for a layup to make it a 2-0 game for the Bulldogs.
On the ensuing Paladin possession, Furman's Alex Williams would commence to starting what was a big night, and he would be fouled by Durr as he drove the paint en route to the hoop, resulting in a two-shot foul for the junior forward, who started the game at the No. 4 spot to help open up the floor more, according to head coach Bob Richey in the postgame presser.
Williams would step to the line and knocked down 1-of-2 foul shots, getting the Paladins to within a point, at 2-1. After misses by Elijah Morgan on a three and Quintin Millora-Brown on a layup, the Paladins would take their first and last lead of the night, as Williams connected on the first of his career-high seven triples to give the Paladins a 4-2 advantage.
JP Pegues made a layup and Williams canned another three following another Millora-Brown missed layup in the paint, and the Paladins' lead would grow to seven, 9-2. The Paladins would remain in control and would lead by six at the first media timeout of the game, as Tyrese Hughey's dunk was matched by a Kenyan Davis layup on the other end, as the two teams went to their respective benches with the Paladins holding a 14-8 advantage with 15:34 remaining in the half.
Three-and-a-half minutes later, JP Pegues' three-pointer would see the Paladins threaten to open a double-digit lead, as his first of two triples in the contest would allow the Paladins to a assume a 24-15 lead with just over 12 minutes remaining in the opening half of play.
Cue the Alex Williams shooting barrage. After Ben VanderWal and secured a rebound following another Morgan three-point miss, the ball found its way to Williams at the top of the key, and he didn't hesitate with his rainbow to give the Paladins their largest lead to that point of the night, at 27-15, with just over 11 minutes remaining in the opening half.
After a Durr layup in the paint cut Furman's lead back to 10 again, it was only a brief respite before Williams fired the Paladins to a 13-point, 30-17 lead with a long-range arrow from the right elbow to increase Furman's lead to 30-17 with 10:37 left off a nice feed from Carter Whitt.
Kenyan Davis answered with a left elbow three on the other end to get the Bulldogs to within 30-20, however, Williams was now feeling it, and as soon as the ball found his hands from NBA range at the top of the key once again, everyone in Timmons Arena knew the ball was going up, and for a third-straight long-range effort, it was the same result, as the Paladins went ahead 33-20 with 9:42 remaining in the half.
Morgan missed a three on the other end, and Cooper Bowser gave Furman its largest lead of the night, at 35-20, after making a layup off the right side following a nice pick-and-roll ball action between he and Williams, as the Paladins were feeling pretty good about themselves for the first time since sometime before Christmas with just under nine minutes left in the opening half.
The Bulldogs used a 10-0 run to cut the Furman lead to five, and all of the sudden making it a game again. A Madison Durr triple would start the run, which was roughly three-and-a-half minutes, getting the Bulldogs back to within 12, at 35-23. The run would conclude when Josh Davis' jumper in the lane would trim the Paladin lead to five, at 35-30, with 5:16 remaining in the half.
Furman would then close the half by outscoring the Bulldogs 9-6, taking a 44-36 lead into the locker room, as it once again found its offensive rhythm late in the opening 20 minutes.
Early in the second half, the Bulldogs trimmed Furman's lead to just three when Durr converted a three-point play the old fashioned way, with a lay-up and foul shot after being Hien committed the infraction for the Paladins, making it a 48-45 game.
Furman's response would be an emphatic one, as the Paladins commenced a 20-6 run , which started with a Hien layup that gave the Paladins a 50-45 lead with 16:18 remaining in the game. It would end seven minutes later when Alex Williams canned another triple to make it a 68-51 Paladin lead with 9:09 remaining. From that point forward, the closest the Bulldogs could get on the scoreboard the rest of the way was 13 points.
The Paladins would assume their largest lead of the night at 20, when Carter Whitt's first points of the night, which came on a three from the top of the key, gave the Paladins a 77-57 lead with just over five minutes left. The Citadel out-scored the Paladins 11-5 the rest of the way, and Furman ended up settling on a 14-point, 82-68, win for its first Southern Conference win and first win of the 2024 calendar year.
Furman will be back in action Saturday afternoon, as it will welcoming East Tennessee State (9-7, 1-2 SoCon) to Timmons Arena for a 2 p.m. contest in a clash between two of the SoCon's most successful hoops programs over the past decade. The Bucs will be looking to put an end to a two-game losing skid after opening up league play in impressive fashion with an 80-69 win over Mercer at Freedom Hall last week.
ETSU has since dropped back-to-back contests against league title contenders UNC Greensboro (L, 54-70) on the road last Saturday, and most recently, dropped a fifth-straight game in the series to Western Carolina (L, 66-80), as the Bucs fell to 1-2 in league play. The Bucs have at no point lost three-straight games this season, while the Paladins have yet to string two wins together against Division I opposition this season. The Paladins have won five-straight over the Bucs at Timmons Arena, dating back to the 2018-19 season.
Postgame Press Conference:
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