Furman may have exposed its destiny on Sunday afternoon. The Paladins may have previewed a glorious future.

Or, maybe not. Oh, Doctor, as Dan Scott likes to say and Red Barber used to.

J.P. Pegues was brilliant, and no one was bad, and Furman (15-12, 9-5 SoCon) devastated Chattanooga (18-8, 10-4), 82-65, in a crucial Southern Conference men’s basketball game watched by a national audience on CBS Sports Network and 2,377 at Timmons Arena.

The junior from Nashville, Tenn., was the Paladins’ leading scorer with 22 points, but it was a small part of his virtuosity. He played 33 minutes of pulsating point guard without committing a turnover, grabbed five rebounds, distributed three assists, and splashed 4/8 three-pointers.

You’d think he was all-conference last year or something. (Pegues, the conference tournament MVP, did not make the regular-season team.)

Informed by Furman radio voice Scott that he hadn’t committed a turnover, Pegues said, “Man, that feels good. I didn’t even know that, honestly. I was just lost in the game. You sure do love, as a point guard, to get your teammates involved and not turn the ball over. That’s a great thing.”

Head coach Bob Richey matched his ebullience.

“That’s our best game of the year,” Richey said. “It just felt so much like a Furman game, you know?”

Watching the Paladins has been a box of chocolates this season. They’re a big Whitman’s Sampler. Sometimes they’re milk chocolate and cashews. Sometimes they’re dark chocolate filled with toothpaste.

That’s the way it seemed when I was 10 years old, anyway.

Furman is not alone in its erratic path. The Southern Conference is percolating like a pot of Sanka as the tournament approaches. Mercer upended league-leading Samford on Saturday. Furman is the only other team to do so thus far. The next game is there on Wednesday night.

This team has strong leadership, but last year, Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson were like having George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower directing the Charge of the Light Brigade.

The Light Brigade would have succeeded. That was in 1854.

Slawson came back to Timmons to get his SoCon championship ring. Richey said he told the team he’d give back his contract with the Sacramento Kings “for five more years at Furman.”

Man. The Gipper couldn’t beat that.

“It’s been a fight to convince them, hey, this is what it’s got to look like,” Richey said. “You know what? We’ve shaken some things up and moved some things around.

“We’ve got a group now. You could feel it [today]. Our connection was real, and it’s encouraging. It’s the feeling you get when the crowd gets into it. It’s encouraging to see.

“Our defense, from the jump, was outstanding.”

Neither team shot well at the outset. Furman led, 7-3, at the first radio/TV timeout (15:53). Honor Huff, who led the Mocs with 26 points, had Chattanooga’s only points on free throws after being fouled by Hien on a triple try. Marcus Foster, who wound up with 15 points, had a trey for Furman.

The Mocs missed their first 10 shots from the floor until Myles Che popped a three at 13:41. Noah Melson gave UTC its first lead at 8-7, but Whitt delivered a deuce to put Furman back ahead, then assisted Vander Wal’s score at 11:25 to put Furman briefly up, 11-8.

Whitt’s nearly length-of-the-court pass to Hien, who slammed, put Furman up, 15-10, with 10:24 remaining the half, and subsequent lay-ins by Hien and Vander Wal (off Whitt’s pass) put the Paladins up, 19-10, and spurred a UTC timeout at 9:16.

PJay Smith’s triple gave Furman its first double-digit lead, 24-13, at the eight-minute mark. At the time, the Mocs were 3/20 from the field.

That was obviously going to get better, though the Paladins’ defense was playing a role.

Smith and Pegues three-pointers – and a Davis Molnar layup off Pegues’s pass –stretched the lead to 32-13 with 6:06 to go in the half. A .543 shooting percentage clobbers .130 every time. Chattanooga finally heated up and got the margin down to 36-20 at the final media break (3:53) of the half.

Pegues canned a three and was assessed a technical for some interaction with the Chattanooga bench. Richey discussed the matter with his point guard and put him back in with two fouls.

Referee Jerry Mosier assessed Foster a technical with 52 seconds remaining. Furman led, 48-29, at halftime, anyway, and the officials left the floor to a lusty round of boos.

How many times have you seen a half in which the only bad things were technical fouls?

Furman shot .548 in the first half. Chattanooga shot .207. Neither team missed a first-half free throw.

Smith stopped a bit of early second-half bleeding with a three-pointer that restored the lead to 18 after Chattanooga scored on a pair of Sam Alexis buckets inside.

Furman got a bit three-happy in the middle stages of the second half, and the Mocs made a 7-0 run that brought them within 15, 59-44, at the 11:37 radio/TV stoppage. Huff made it testy with two free throws (out of three) that brought the Mocs within 11.

A Foster triple quieted a 5/17 Paladin shooting throe that opened the second half.

The Mocs’ rally ended up being much ado about nothing. Pegues’ trey made it 65-48 at the 7:53 radio/TV timeout. Furman came out of it rockin’ and rollin’ and blew Chattanooga away again. The Paladins shot .483 overall, .407 from three and .867 from the line.

Tyrese Hughey, Richey said, was the game’s unsung hero. He scored seven points, one of which was a crucial trey, grabbed four rebounds and was a defensive stalwart. Smith, who scored 11, played 32 minutes without committing a turnover. Garrett Hien had seven rebounds, Carter Whitt four assists and emerging Cooper Bowser scored a career-best eight.

The Paladins’ victory can’t help but give the Mocs incentive for the tournament. Dan Earl and staff will be playing the tape backward and forward.

I may replay it a couple times myself.

Take a look at the stats here.

For well over two weeks I’ve been suffering from shingles, which has curtailed my live coverage. I was suffering. Now I’m just aggravated. I did have splitting headaches. Now they’re fairly mild. The rash is mainly a remnant.

I went out to a basketball game and a baseball game on Saturday. The latter was just for photos. Still, at least one story has been posted for 37 days, a record for the site.

I still don’t feel so hot. Shingles has also knocked me off my financial rocker. I’m strapped for cash but still writing as hard and resourcefully as I can.

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