By MONTE DUTTON

Many years ago, a broadcaster who wasn’t occupied with play by play at the time was holding court on a baseball press row when he proclaimed, regarding a certain football team, that it was “the best 0-9-2 team in the country.”’
A nearby pundit, or perhaps a wag, deadpanned “I have little doubt that is true.”
The story was told and retold for years.
The Citadel brought an 0-16 Southern Conference basketball team to Bon Secours Wellness Arena on Wednesday night. Furman is the Bulldogs’ most familiar rival. In a season of ignominy, The Citadel took its instate rivals, Furman and Wofford, into overtime earlier this season, in Charleston on Jan. 8 against the Paladins (67-63) and on Feb. 12 versus the Terriers (74-71).
When Furman won the conference two seasons ago, all that marred the final 11 regular-season games was a 69-65 Citadel upset on Feb. 15, 2023.
Oh, surely the Lord not.

It is uncommon for a Furman graduate of my age to regard The Citadel with sympathy.
Furman needed Wednesday night’s game to clinch a first-round bye in the Ingles SoCon Championships, which begin on Friday, March 7, and optimally for the Paladins on Saturday, March 8. Furman finishes up its tournament jockeying this Saturday afternoon at 2 in Spartanburg at Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium. Wofford defeated Furman on Jan. 13 in Greenville, 81-62. It doesn’t take hocus-pocus for that one to be scary and seeding-significant.
The Citadel and Wofford are, respectively, Furman’s fiercest and closest rivals.
The popular cliché holds that the records can be cast aside in both games. That cliché wasn’t popular at The Well.

Much ado about nothing.
Furman came out firing, scoring the game’s first 13 points and holding The Citadel scoreless until the 12:19 mark. The Bulldogs missed their first nine triples, and Tom House’s trey put the Paladins up, 26-4. He hit all six he tried.
The halftime score was 44-11. The Paladins didn’t let up and cruised to an 85-42 victory in Furman’s final appearance with The Well as its regular home. Next season, the Paladins will return to the intimacy of Timmons Arena, reinvented and lavishly modernized.
With the victory, Furman improved to 22-8 overall and 10-7 in league play. It marks the seventh time in the last nine seasons that Furman has reached the 22-win plateau. The win also clinched a first-round bye for the Paladins in the tournament, which is March 7-10 at the Harrah’s Cherokee Center Asheville in Asheville, N.C. The Citadel dropped to 5-23 overall and 0-17 in the SoCon.

Furman held the Bulldogs without a made field goal until the 11:38 mark. The opening field goal turned out to be one of just four in the half for The Citadel as Furman’s defense held the Bulldogs to 4/26 shooting from the floor.
The Paladins outscored The Citadel 23-11 over the first nine minutes of the second half to increase its lead to 45 points at 67-22. Furman finished the game shooting .525 from the field, including 15/33 from long range.
“This was one of the rare games where the opponent never makes a run,” head coach Bob Richey noted on radio to Dan Scott.

House and PJay Smith Jr. paced the Paladins with 19 points apiece while Garrett Hien scored 14 to reach 1,000 points for his career. House nailed all six of his three-point attempts to become just the third player in school history to record a perfect night behind the arc on five or more attempts.
The Paladins posted a season-low opponents’ field goal percentage by holding the Bulldogs to .250 shooting, just 5/24 from three-point range. Furman outscored the Bulldogs 17-2 in transition and 28-14 in the paint.

It was a wipeout that will be cited bitterly in Charleston the next time The Citadel prevails.
Brody Fox led The Citadel with 14 points.
The 42 points allowed marked the fewest given up by a Paladin squad during the Bob Richey era and the fewest allowed to a SoCon opponent since limiting Western Carolina to 37 in an 85-37 victory during the 2016-17 campaign.
The postgame scene was joyous, not vengeful.

Hien, who both loves Furman and is beloved, was overcome by emotion. Radio voice Dan Scott pointed out that Hien, a five-year loyalist, became the seventh Furman player to reach 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 250 assists. The Concord, N.C., product reached 1,000 points with the 21st 3-pointer of his career.
He recalled “day one” at Furman to Scott.
“It was August 2021, the middle of COVID. It’s been a journey. I’ve grown up and five years older. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it’s been awesome,” Hien said.
Women’s basketball wraps up its regular season with a pair of road games, taking on Chattanooga at 6 p.m. Thursday and East Tennessee State in a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee.

Furman is likely to take the No. 6 seed into Southern Conference Tournament play, which gets underway next Thursday at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, N.C. The Paladins will play in 3:30 p.m. first-round matchup against the No. 3 seed, which could be Wofford, Chattanooga, Samford or East Tennessee State, depending on how the last two games turn out.
Furman (14-14, 4-8 SoCon) dropped its first meeting of the season with Chattanooga (13-12, 8-4 SoCon). The Mocs’ Caia Elisadez scored 24 points and Chattanooga limited Furman to only five second-quarter points to gain the upper hand. Sydney Ryan paced four Paladin double-figure scorers with 15 points, followed by Clare Coyle with 13.

Chattanooga owns a 61-28 edge in the series with Furman and is currently riding a six-game winning streak against the Paladins.
East Tennessee State (15-12, 6-6 entering Thursday’s home game versus Wofford) also eclipsed Furman, 72-62, on Jan. 30 action. The Bucs’ Paige Lyons’ 23-point scoring performance keyed ETSU, which used a 27-point fourth quarter to cinch the victory.

Glimpses

Furman’s Carson Williams and Nysa Males have been named the Southern Conference men’s and women’s indoor track and field athletes of the week. … No. 40 Furman topped Western Carolina, 5-2, to open Southern Conference play Tuesday at Mickel Tennis Center. … Senior Elijah Poritzky is Southern Conference Men’s Tennis Player of the Week. … Sara Snyder is Southern Conference women’s tennis player of the week.

The Furman lacrosse team swept all three weekly awards from the Big South Conference. Senior midfielder Paige Harman was Offensive Player of the Week while junior goalie Madigan Brewer was Defensive Player of the Week accolades. Freshman attack Lily Toole was voted Freshman of the Week for the second straight week. … The 31st-ranked Clemson Tigers topped the Furman men’s tennis team, 4-1, on Sunday but Poritzky defeated Noa Vukadin at number one singles to score for the Paladins.

Northern Iowa plated four runs in the top of the seventh inning and Anna Wischnowski hurled a one-hit shutout as the Panthers downed Furman, 4-0, in the finale of the Furman Softball Classic on Sunday afternoon. … Furman’s offense scored 18r runs over 11 innings and the Paladins tossed back-to-back shutouts, including a no-hitter by Emme Buzhardt, to claim a pair of victories on Saturday over Holy Cross and Morehead State.

Words can ill express my appreciation for the assistance I’ve been getting from lifelong friends and acquaintances in regard to my recent health struggles. I am deeply touched at the concern of people I’ve known for most of my life.
The coming months will bring more change, and I don’t know yet what shape it will take.
From time to time, I have thought it a shame that people don’t often know what others think of them while they are alive. I’ve had a rough go of it recently, but I know that others respect, appreciate and support me.

Thanks for reading my stories, overlooking my flaws and indulging our differences.
My books, most of them fiction, are available at Amazon and on other bookseller sites. I’ve written two novels about stock-car racing, Lightning in a Bottle, and the sequel, Life Gets Complicated, both about fictional young driver Barrie Jarman.
Thanks for putting up with me.