One game does not turn a season around. It takes more to qualify as a turnaround. Perhaps one began at Timmons Arena on Wednesday when The Citadel was satisfactorily repulsed.
An encore is important. Furman gets a chance to make another action louder than words when East Tennessee State visits Timmons on Saturday at 2 p.m.
After Furman polished off the Bulldogs, 82-68, head coach Bob Richey said it had been important to “make sure we come out and look like an affirmative team.”
Richey was talking about more than his team when he said, “I think one of the hardest things right now is to get a group to collectively say this is what we have to do. This is what we have to buy into. Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of a three-game skid, that’s hard to do.
“What I think is we did a great job of hey, you know what? At the end of the day, we all have to accept responsibility for this, and we have to go fix it. … Everybody talks about the benefit of leadership. Very few people talk about the cost of leadership, and the first one is sometimes you have to make decisions that can impact people you care about in a negative way.”
Furman has Pegues and Williams back from injury, and Marcus Foster should be back soon.
ETSU (9-7, 1-2 SoCon) opened with a home victory over Mercer but followed with losses to UNC Greensboro and Western Carolina. The Catamounts and Samford, which defeated UNCG on Thursday night, are tied at the top with 3-0 conference marks. Three more teams are 2-1. Three, Furman and ETSU among them, are 1-2. Two are 0-3.
It’s time for the reigning SoCon champs to get cracking. Western Carolina and Samford are visiting Furman on Jan. 20 and 24, respectively, after a trip to VMI. Victories on Saturday and Wednesday would put the Paladins at 3-2 when the Catamounts arrive.
First things first, however.
Furman (7-9, 1-2) will welcome men’s basketball alumni back to campus for Legends Weekend. Honored in particular at halftime are the 1974 Paladins, who captured the school’s first SoCon regular -season title, Furman’s third league tournament title in a four-year stretch and claimed the school’s first NCAA Tournament win with a 75-67 victory over South Carolina at the Palestra in Philadelphia, Pa.
Basketball alumni arrived on campus on Friday to watch practice and enjoy dinner at Larkin’s before taking in Furman’s Saturday morning walk-through and an alumni tailgate prior to the game.
Saturday’s game marks the 78th meeting between Furman and ETSU with the Bucs holding a 34-33 series edge. Furman swept last season’s regular season home-and-home series with the Bucs and have won five straight versus ETSU inside Timmons Arena, including an 83-79 decision in the most recent meeting last February.
Junior Alex Williams drilled a career-best seven triples and Furman shot a season-high .550 from the field to win its 14th game in the last 16 meetings versus the Bulldogs.
With leading scorer Marcus Foster (19.8 ppg) having missed the last eight games due to a knee injury, Williams (15.6) and fellow junior J.P. Pegues (17.5) have shouldered the scoring load for Richey’s squad.
Injuries have forced the Paladins to play a nation-leading 13 different starting lineups in their first 16 games. After the entire team missed just five combined games due to injury a year ago, Furman’s 10 available scholarship players have sat for 22 games already this season, including a combined 16 games missed by Foster, Pegues and Williams.
Senior Ebby Asamoah leads ETSU, averaging 15.3 points per game.
Following Saturday’s game, Furman returns to the road to take on VMI on Wednesday night in Lexington, Va.
Saturday’s game, sponsored by Bon Secours, is set to tip-off at 2 p.m. will be streamed live on ESPN+. Fans can listen to the action on The Fan Upstate at 97.7 FM and 1330 AM in Greenville, on 97.1 FM and 1490 AM in Spartanburg, or via the Audacy app.
The Furman women, having debuted SoCon successfully on Thursday night in Cullowhee, remain on the North Carolina road at UNC Greensboro on Saturday, also tipping off at 2.
UNCG (12-4, 1-0) is coming off a 67-58 home victory over Wofford. Jayde Gamble led the Spartans with 22 points, nine rebounds and five steals. Gamble averages 13.3 points and is the only UNCG player in double figures.
Furman (11-6, 1-0) takes balance to an extreme. Five Paladins – Jada Sesson (13.1), Sydney Ryan (12.3), Kate Johnson (11.7), Niveya Henley (11.3) and Tate Walters (10.5) – average in double figures, and Session averages nine rebounds.
The game will also be streamed on ESPN+.
Three new greats are headed into the Furman Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, Feb. 2, at the Huguenot Loft in downtown Greenville.
Ticketed for enshrinement are softball’s Lindsey Bert ’18, football’s Dakota Dozier ‘14, and United States National Team soccer centerback Walker Zimmerman.
Bert, a native of Tallahassee, Fla., was SoCon Pitcher of the Year in 2017 and 2018. The left-hander led Furman to 41 victories as a senior.
A two-time All-American and three-time All-SoCon selection, Dozier was a four-year starter for the Paladin football team from 2010-13 and was selected in the fourth round of the 2014 NFL Draft by the New York Jets. Dozier spent seven seasons in the NFL with the Jets, Minnesota Vikings, and Chicago Bears.
Zimmerman was a two-time All-America and two-time All-SoCon selection during his two-year stint with the Furman men’s soccer team. The Lawrenceville, Ga., native has served as captain for the United States Men’s National Team and guided the U.S. to the knockout stages of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. He recently completed his 11th season of professional soccer.
Tickets to the event, which get underway with cocktails at 6:00 p.m., followed by dinner and ceremony, are $75 and can be purchased here.
Sixth-ranked Tennessee defeated Furman, 7-0, on Friday in the opening men’s tennis match for both.
Thomas Kennedy took the Vols’ Younes Lalani to a first-set tie-breaker at No. 2 singles before falling 6-4 in the latter set.
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