By MONTE DUTTON

Imagine a basketball game in which one team, the victorious one, leads for 32 minutes, 45 seconds, but never by more than nine points.

Furman’s 74-72 victory over Mercer, the first Southern Conference game for both teams, was a harbinger of what lies ahead. It’s a grind, and both the Paladins and the Bears spent the afternoon of New Year’s Eve with noses against the proverbial grindstone. Furman (10-4, 1-0 SoCon) had it virtually all the way, but not by much. The noses were figuratively skint.

“That was a war,” said Furman head coach Bob Richey. “Packed-out crowd that really got into it late. I can’t get over how great it looks in here. It was a high-level college basketball game.”

Soon the students will be back and the pep band belting out the fight song, the “shouts of triumph floating on high.”

“We’re proud to come out on the other side of it. It’s conference play. There’s going to be a lot of one-possession games. … I felt our ball security was a little better in the second half. We did a better job on the backboards, not giving them as many second-chance points. Then it went back and forth. A couple times we pulled out by six, seven, eight points, but you knew they were going to keep coming. They made some huge plays down the stretch, but give our guys credit. We did, too,” Richey added.

Freshman Alex Wilkins rattled in a jumper from the right baseline with 19.1 seconds remaining to lift Furman to a 74-72 victory on Wednesday afternoon at Timmons Arena in front of 2,117.

The Paladins finished the month of December at 6-0 to go undefeated in the final month of the year for the first time since the 1978-79 season.

Trailing throughout the second half, Mercer (8-6, 0-1) made four consecutive shots in the final 2:30, including three from behind the arc, and pulled even at 72-72 when Brady Shoulders connected on a three-pointer from the left wing with 40 seconds remaining. Following a 30-second timeout, Wilkins drove down the right side and leaned in to connect on a floater that put the Paladins back in front by two.

Three of the Bears’ final four baskets were triples. The Paladins were determined in the final 40 seconds not to allow another.

Mercer could not find the shot it wanted and took a timeout with 5.4 seconds to play. Baraka Okojie inbounded the ball and got the ball back on a handoff before attempting a jumper from the left elbow. Armani Mighty rebounded the miss, but his tip-in came up short and Charles Johnston swatted the ball away as time expired.

House reacted to Furman’s late defensive stands humbly. Wilkins was having none of it.

“He’s not giving himself enough credit,” Wilkins said of his senior teammates. “We all work really hard in practice. Chuck (Johnston) works really hard. [Tom] works really hard. They weren’t going to score again. They led us through those little droughts. It worked out, and we were determined not to give them another bucket.”

Mighty came into the game shooting .700 (70/100). In no small part due to Johnston’s dogged work against the 6-10 transfer, he was 4/11.

“I tried to match his physicality as much as possible,” said the 6-11 Johnston. “He still got a decent amount of rebounds, but I tried to neutralize him as much as possible. It was part of the game plan, so I was pretty happy with how we all did.

“We had some tough losses early, and we’ve seen how tough close games can be and how there can be such a small difference between winning and losing. That left us really prepared for these types of games. We know what happens in tight games and how much single possessions really do matter.”

Wilkins posted a team-high 20 points and seven assists while Asa Thomas added 19 points. House and Ben Vander Wal also reached double figures with 13 and 11 points, respectively. Johnston added nine points and 12 rebounds.

 The lead changed hands eight times in the first half, but the Paladins led the entire second half until the final minute. Furman shot .441 from the field and made good on 9/23 three-point attempts. Mercer shot .414 but held a 15-9 edge in points off turnovers, 38-28 advantage in points in the paint and outscored Furman 17-8 on second-chance opportunities.

Okojie paced Mercer with 22 points on 7/16 shooting and Zaire Williams added 13 points. Mighty was held to eight points while pulling down a game-high 13 rebounds.

Cooper Bowser remains sidelined with a sprained big toe, which is commonly known as a turf toes in sports where there is turf. Three others are sidelined for the short run. Davis Molnar may be back late in the season. Three of the eight who saw action – Wilkins, Abijah Franklin and Owen Ritger – are freshmen.

“They have a little bit of a ramp-up,” Richey said. “They had to get used to the pace. They had to get used to how hard it is.”

Furman returns to action on Saturday when it hosts Western Carolina (4-8, 0-1), which lost to Wofford, 79-74, on Wednesday, for a 4 p.m. tip-off at Timmons Arena. The showdown versus the Catamounts, which will be streamed live on ESPN+, will serve as the second half of a doubleheader that begins with the Furman women’s team hosting Bob Jones at 1 p.m.

“The fans got a treat. A lot of bad things get said about college basketball today,” Richey said, “but you can’t beat that game. The quality of ball. Their execution. Our execution. That’s what it’s all about. It was a great game.”

Take a look at the stats here.

I should apologize for my tardiness. I got most of this written on Thursday morning, but the college football games took me away, and I wasn’t pleased with what I had.

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