By MONTE DUTTON

Furman has a week to get its groove back after falling to Mercer, 82-75, in the final game of the regular season in front of 2,457 at Timmons Arena on Saturday afternoon.

The Paladins don’t have a Southern Conference Tournament game until next Saturday.

Shooting was the difference for the Bears. Defense, or lack thereof, was the difference for the Paladins.

Mercer (15-16, 8-10 SoCon) shot .552 (32/58) overall and – get this — .600 (9/15) from beyond the three-point line. If that raises the specter of poor defense by the Paladins … that’s what their head coach, Bob Richey, thought, too.

“(Mercer head coach) Greg (Gary) did a great job having his team ready to play,” Richey said. “I thought they were the physical team, and I thought they played harder than us, collectively, and they beat us so hard to win this game [because] we had some guys that did and some guys that didn’t. It’s a game of connection, a game of energy.

“When you play in your home gym, and your get beat in all those categories, you can’t be surprised. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, it’s on me. It’s my job to get a team playing defense. It’s my job to get a team that looks like [it] wants to play defense. It’s my job to get a team connected.”

Richey cited numerous examples of disconnections.

Jalyn McCreary scored 21 points to lift the Bears past Furman (16-15, 10-8) Furman Paladins in the final game at Timmons until 2025-26. The home venue, opened in 1997, is being reinvented while the Paladins shift to Bon Secours Wellness Arena for a season.
The Paladins, in spite of losing their final two conference games, had already secured a first-round bye in the Ingles SoCon Men’s Basketball Championship, March 8-11, at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, N.C. Furman will be the No. 5 seed and face Western Carolina in the quarterfinal round on Saturday, March 9, at 8:30 p.m.

“It’s not a mystery, and it’s frustrating,” Richey said. “That’s why I’m mad, because, if we do guard, we can go up there and win it. That’s clear. It’s not, like do we have any film that can validate that? It’s really clear.

“I’ve failed, and I’ve done a poor job getting this team to buy into that.”
McCreary’s 21 points, on 10/16 shooting, paced four Bears in double figures. David Thomas added 18 points, Caleb Hunter 14 and Jalen Cobb 11.

Mercer held its largest lead of the game with five minutes remaining when Hunter connected on a three to give it a 70-57 advantage. Following a Marcus Foster layup, McCreary answered with a dunk to put Mercer back in front, 72-59. The Paladins staged a late rally over the final 4:29, going on a 16-6 run, to cut their deficit to 78-75 with 33 seconds left on PJay Smith’s triple.

The Bears closed it out at the free-throw line.
Three players scored 10 or more points for Furman, led by J.P. Pegues’s 19 (plus eight assists) on 7/14 shooting. Smith made five three-pointers to finish with 17 and pulled down six rebounds. Foster compiled a “double double “with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Ben Vander Wal grabbed seven rebounds.

“It was [on] every single one of us, myself included, that we let their guys get open looks, and one started falling in after another, and they gained confidence,” Pegues said. “I wouldn’t say I was surprised.”

Foster added, “The biggest difference that I’ve been noticing is our energy. Our energy in the Samford game was much higher than today. We came out a little bit flat, and they punched us in the mouth from the start, and they were in control of the game from start to finish. We gave them life from the start.”

Exhibit A: Furman led for 21 seconds.

The rebounding edge gave the Paladins an 18-4 edge in second-chance points, but Mercer won in points off turnover (14-5), points in the paint (40-38) and fast-break points (12-3).

McCreary also finished with five rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Thomas was 7/13 from the field and added six assists. Hunter made 5/8 field goals, and Cobb knocked down 3/3 triples.
Furman’s shooting? Not so hot. The Paladins shot .412 (28/68) altogether and .257 (9/35) from deep, where Foster was 1/8, Pegues 1/7 and Smith 5/13.

Oddly, given Mercer’s superior size, Furman outrebounded the Bears, 40-29, and beat them on the offensive boards, 19-6. Its own shooting left ample opportunities.

“I’m not saying that everybody didn’t play hard,” Richey said. “Basketball is a game of connections. You have to care about one another and understand how important the team is.

“We didn’t have a team that just quit. We were down 11, the game looked like it was cooked and baked, and we fought ourselves back to a three-point game. Imagine if we wouldn’t have given wide-open threes, and we would’ve had everybody crashing, and if we would’ve been the more physically connected team with the best energy from a totality standpoint. Maybe it’s a different outcome.”

Looking ahead to the tournament, Richey noted that some team is going to win three straight games and claim it.

“Our best version is really clear,” he said. “We don’t have to go out there and figure anything out. When’s Furman at its best? When we’re playing really hard defensively, when we’re running a transition, and when in the halfcourt, the ball’s getting moved and we’re getting it side to side. When we’re covering backboards in a respectable fashion.

“It’s just a choice. We can have all the team meetings in the world and all the ‘reset buttons.’ When that ball get tipped up, there are decisions you have to make. … You have to decide on how much it’s going to matter to be a great teammate.”

The Paladins have been up, and they’ve been down. Most are quite familiar with Asheville.
Take a look at the stats here.

I could stand some assistance for the impending Asheville trip.

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