By MONTE DUTTON

On Thursday night, I watched the replay of the Furman-UNCG game. I only saw the last few minutes live because I was at another game.

When I got home, my reaction was:

What? Now three starters are out? Foster, Pegues and Williams?

Jumpin’ Jehosaphat! (Not the real words, but in my defense, they were only in my mind and I asked forgiveness. My prayers are often very long.)

I pored over the stats, read the release and cranked out a story late at night. The PC men and women also played at the same time.

Autumn is so organized. I stay up all night but only on Friday and Saturday. Winter is the second shift, with work to do every night. Fortunately, either a ballgame or an old movie is always on in the background, and the guitar is at my side.

When I watched the full game, I settled down.

The hell of it is, if the Paladins could have sunk a bar of soap, incredibly, against all odds, they could have won.

Oh, they hustled. Oh, they scrapped. Oh, they clanked.

“When you’re going through hard times, you don’t always realize the dividends and the payoff it’s going to give you get to the other side of it,” said Furman head coach Bob Richey. “Leaders are made in adversity. Leaders are developed in hard times.”

It’s not like these guys haven’t buried one shot after another, on some darkened asphalt court, for hours, since they were eight years old.

They’ve got to get their groove back. I’ve always thought shooting was as much a matter of confidence as form, analytics, wearing the same pair of socks or anything else.

I’m confident they will shoot with majesty again. Richey says they will, and one item I’ve learned from writing about Bob is that Bob is prone to being right.

“We can’t hesitate,” said Richey. “We’ve got to keep fighting, and we’ve got to keep swinging. When we start to get healthy and we get these guys back, I’m truly excited about where this team can as the leadership continues to grow. We continue to play to our values.

“We’ve got to stay encouraged. We’ve got to stay focused on a vision that’s greater than our discouragements and disappointments. When you go through life and you lack vision and values, when the discouragement hits you, it decreases your focus because you don’t have a fixation on values.”

Richey has been saying all season that people underestimate J.P. Pegues’s talents. I thought, well, it would be impossible to overestimate them, at least in my view. If there were any non-believers, absence in Greensboro proved his importance in reverse.

“I’m really proud of the way J.P. has handled this,” said Richey. “It’s not just going to elevate his performances, but his trajectory, not just in basketball, but in life, if he continues to develop the gifts that God’s given him to be a natural leader.”

The ailing Paladins provide quite a quandary as Chattanooga’s roundhouse drifts into view.

Do Pegues, Marcus Foster and Alex Williams return as soon as they are able and risk further aggravations that might plague them all season? I trust Pegues and Williams will play the Mocs, but I trusted that on Wednesday against the Spartans, too. It’s a quandary.

Richey strenuously proclaims that this team is going to be a good one, and it’s going to improve dramatically as soon as injuries stop retarding its growth.

“Is December going to be looked as a disappointing December? Yeah. You can look at it that way,” he said Tuesday. “You can roll with that narrative, and you can let that affect your energy and your focus.

“We’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to utilize it in the best way we can. … We’ve got to keep moving forward. … That’s what the trick of all this is.”

Furman has been injury-plagued and flu-ridden. The three-point shooting woes have worsened. In the past three games, the Paladins have hit 14/78 (.179).

The Southern Conference is full of teams that are encouraged, and one reason is Furman (6-8, 0-1) is discouraged.

But Bob is prone to being right.

Keep those cards, letters and donations coming. The sports seasons are back at full speed. In the fall, I’m up all night on weekends. In winter, I’m up late most nights.

I’m thankful for your support, whether by advertising, contributing or reading.

Thanks so much for the recent contributions. My goal is to provide unique coverage of local sports. I’m aware that folks appreciate what I do, particularly the kids, coaches, parents and fans.

I used to list an address to send a check (DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325). I finally got it through my thick head that not that many people write checks nowadays. For example, me. A more convenient means might be sending a reasonable contribution to DHK Sports on Venmo.

Support the advertisers, and help keep the site – the game stories, the blogs, the photos – alive by making, if you choose, a monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

Another way I can make a little is if you purchase my books at MonteDutton.net. They’re quite entertaining in spite of the fellow who wrote them. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. The latest, The Latter Days, is about baseball.

Photo galleries are posted on Instagram @furmanatt and @laurenscountysports.