By MONTE DUTTON

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – It’s the time of basketball season that leads grown men to cry.
March brings tears of joy and tears of sorrow. When Furman and Wofford play on Monday night for the Southern Conference championship, eyes from both teams are likely to moisten, and not all are going to be players. A line of precipitation will cross the environs of Harrah’s Cherokee Center, offering yet another bit of evidence that the fans of the Paladins and Terriers despise each other because they are too damn much alike.
On Sunday, when Furman edged top-seeded Chattanooga, 80-77, it wasn’t yet time for Paladins to weep. Nor was it such an occasion for Wofford, which dispatched Virginia Military, 85-65.

But the Mocs’ players were crying in the post-game media conference. Chattanooga, top seed, winners of 12 straight before Furman bagged them, had the NIT in their back pockets. It didn’t matter. During one of the questions, it was hard to tell which of two players was talking because both had their faces in their hands.
Said the Mocs’ graceful head coach, Dan Earl, of Furman, “They’re a team, and they know their roles and they play the right way.
“Our guys should hold their heads high.”

Cooper Bowser (21) sets a screen for PJay Smith.

Among the reasons this process is so excruciating is that the regular season measures who is best over a long span. The tournament measures who is best right now. The separation in both is slim in the SoSon, where Furman is, at the same time, both 25-8 and seeded fifth. Chattanooga is 24-9 and seeded first.
Wofford is 18-15 and seeded sixth.
For the Paladins and the Terriers, the job isn’t done. That NCAA tournament bid is a mansion on a hill. It’s a castle in the clouds. It’s Camelot. Camelot!

The rain may never fall till after sundown / By eight, the morning fog must disappear./ In short, there’s simply not / A more congenial spot / For happily-ever-aftering than here /
In Camelot / Camelot!
When Furman won it two years ago, I may have been dreaming, but I could swear Mike Bothwell removed Excalibur from a stone.
Sunday was the day for Bob Richey to say that everybody had counted the Paladins out. One wrong move, and that will be the Wofford refrain. It was just nine days ago that Furman defeated Wofford with a second to spare. This is only the third time the Paladins have met the Terriers in the tournament. Wofford won the first two.

This SoCon business is hard.
“One of us had to lose today, and, fortunately, it wasn’t us,” said Richey. “The nation got a treat (on ESPU) with that game and two teams that just refused to lose.”
Furman rallied from a five-point deficit in the final 1:15 of regulation to force overtime.
Back-to-back three-pointers from Chattanooga’s Honor Huff erased Furman’s 65-64 lead and gave the Mocs a 70-65 edge with 1:33 to go in regulation. On the Paladins’ next possession, PJay Smith Jr. answered with a triple and Furman called timeout with 1:10 remaining.

Furman forced a turnover on the following possession, and Smith knotted the game at 70-70 with a pull-up jumper from the left side with 27.5 seconds on the clock. The Mocs got the final opportunity to claim a win in regulation, but sophomore Cooper Bowser rejected Trey Bonham’s driving layup on the right side of the lane with two seconds left to force overtime.

Nick Anderson’s jumper in the lane put Furman in front 74-72 in overtime and Bowser converted 1/2 on the foul line to extend the lead to 75-72 with 2:51 to go. After Bash Wieland trimmed the Furman lead to one point and the teams traded turnovers, Anderson drew a foul with 34 seconds left and made both shots free throws to restore the three-point lead.
Garrison Keeslar found Wieland cutting to the basket for two points to bring the Mocs within 77-76. Chattanooga fouled Smith, who finished both free throw attempts with 16 seconds left, and Eddrin Bronson stole Chattanooga’s inbounds pass. The redshirt freshman fed the ball to Anderson, and the graduate student drew a foul with 12 seconds to go before draining both free throws to up the margin to 80-76.

Bonham raced down the floor and drew a two-shot foul. He made the first free throw to cut the Paladin lead to 80-77. After both teams exhausted 30-second timeouts, the Chattanooga guard intentionally missed the second free-throw attempt and the rebound was deflected out of bounds. Following a video review, the Mocs got possession and lobbed a pass out top to Bonham, who missed wide on his desperation 3-pointer as time expired.
If there had been more blow-by-blow, it would have been a prize fight.
Richey even said it: “Play after play. Punch after punch.”

Smith led Furman with 25 points on 5/8 shooting behind the arc and a perfect 6/6 at the foul line. He added a game-high eight rebounds and four assists. Anderson finished 8/15 from the field, including 4/8 behind the arc.for 23 points while Garrett Hien added 10 points. Charles Johnston gave Furman a second-half boost with nine points and five rebounds in less than nine minutes of play.
The Paladins shot .474 from the floor and connected on 12/28 three-point attempts. Furman managed a 37-34 edge on the boards and hit 8/10 free throws in overtime to finish 14/21 at the line.

“I’ve had to come to this tremendous peace this weekend because there’s no pressure when you have purpose,” Richey said. “This group right here has creative purpose. You can see it when they play.
“Every person in the locker room has believed, and that’s what’s been fun about this.”
Huff poured in a game-high 28 points on 8/11 shooting from 3-point range while Wieland and Bonham contributed 16 and 14 points, respectively. The Mocs, who shot .438, made 11/25 three-point attempts and 10/12 free-throw attempts.
And lost. Any wonder they took it hard?

The semifinal win marked the fifth overtime contest for Furman in the last five years at the SoCon Championship. The Paladins improved to 6-5 all-time versus the Mocs in postseason play.
Fans can listen to Sunday’s championship game on The Fan Upstate at 97.7 FM and 1330 AM in Greenville, 97.1 FM and 1490 AM in Spartanburg, and they can watch it on ESPN.
Take a look at the stats here.

As a fellow said in a movie once, “Isn’t fun the greatest thing you can have?”

A final on Monday means time to wander around. Asheville’s a blessing for the curious. One of the years, I’m going to enjoy a meal at Ole’s Guacamoles, Mexican tariffs be damned. Would you believe the Thomas Wolfe boarding house is closed on Mondays?

Words can ill express my appreciation for the assistance I’ve been getting from lifelong friends and acquaintances in regard to my 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.