By MONTE DUTTON

Basketball is funny. That’s my mindless observation. Joe Garagiola wrote a book called Baseball Is a Funny Game, so he began the advance of the banal.

A Game Is a Funny Game. Remain Calm. All is well.

At glittering new Timmons Arena, Furman calmly conquered Virginia Military Institute, 69-48.

The team atop the Southern Conference, still early yet, is East Tennessee State (12-5, 4-0), pursued closely by our Paladins (12-5, 3-1) and their Terriers (11-6, 3-1).

I expected it of Furman. I suspected it of Wofford. The Buccaneers caught me unawares because when I saw ETSU, on Nov. 8 in Clinton, it lost to Presbyterian, 68-64.

Much has changed. Much always changes. Much changing is the plan, though sometimes with unintended consequences. The preseason pick to win the SoCon, Chattanooga, is 7-10 and 1-3.

Citadel won Saturday.

Alex Wilkins and Eddrin Bronson combined to score 33 points, and Furman’s defense largely erased VMI’s shooting touch on Saturday afternoon.

 Bronson matched a career-high with 16 points and VMI shot just .269 from the field.

The Paladins ended the first half on a 12-5 run to take a 34-27 halftime edge and fashioned a 13-0 run early in the second half to increase their margin to 50-30. Furman never led by fewer than 15 points the rest of the way as the Paladins secured their 11^th win in the last 13 games.

Wilkins scored a team-high 17 points on 7/16 shooting, while Bronson dropped 47 three-pointers and scored eight points in each half.

“This was a gritty game, and it had to be,” Furman head coach Bob Richey said. “The (VMI) zone is unique, and with us playing four freshmen in our top eight, to expect crisp and short and clean zone execution, I knew we’d have to excel in other grittier areas of the game and thought our team did that.

“I think that’s the best defensive effort we’ve put in a game all season.”

Ben Vander Wal finished with 11 points, and Charles Johnston grabbed a season-best 15 rebounds to go with a career-best five assists.

 The Paladins held VMI to just 6/25 shooting inside the three-point line, and the Keydets (6-11, 1-3) connected on just 9/31 attempts beyond rebounding edge to help offset 20 turnovers that led to 25 VMI points. The Furman the arc. Furman hit just .429 of its field-goal attempts but recorded 11 triples and posted a 48-32 bench outscored the VMI reserves 26-15, led by Bronson’s 16.

“It was probably our best defensive performance of the season,” said Vander Wal, a senior from Elmhurst, Ill.  “We track ‘kills,’ and normally our goal is seven in a game. We had 10. I don’t think we’re going to lose a game if we have 10 kills.”

Richey’s definition for kill is three consecutive defensive stops.

“We had a lot of guys come in and give us awesome efforts off the bench,” Vander Wal added. “It shows the depth of our team and what we’re capable of.”

“Those are energy plays,” noted Bronson, a redshirt soph from Tampa, Fla. “It gets you into the game. It gets your blood going.”

T.J. Johnson scored 15 points for the Keydets, while Walker Andrews scored 10 points off the bench.

It’s popular for coaches to stress “the middle eight,” referring to the final four minutes of the first half and first eight of the second. The Paladins piled up a 20-5 margin over that span.

Furman is back on the road Wednesday when it travels to Pete Hanna Center to face the Samford Bulldogs at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+.

Forty-five former players were among the 2,447 on hand for Reunion Weekend.

“When [I] first got here nine years ago, we talked about this being a players’ program,” said Richey. “I don’t want this to be a place where they used to play. I want them to always be a part of this.”

Take a look at the stats here.

The Furman women’s team fell in Chattanooga, Tenn., falling, 61-44, to the Mocs, who got 19 points from Caia Elisaldez and controlled from the outset.

The victory improves Chattanooga to 10-5 overall on the season and 2-0 in SoCon play while Furman falls to 9-8 and 1-1.

The Mocs hit 8/15 shots in the first period while using strong defense to limit the Paladins to just 2/14. UTC led 31-17 at halftime.

 Elisadez hit 9-of-16 shots from the field to pace Chattanooga, which shot .460 (23/50).  Gianna Corbitt was the only other Mocs player in double figures with 10 points, which she combined with 13 rebounds.

 Three Paladins— Clare Coyle, Sophia Pearl and Chantelle Stuart – scored eight points apiece.  Coyle suffered through a frustrating shooting performance (3/14) but was credited with a game high 16 rebounds, one off her career high.

The Paladins shot .276 from the field, hitting just 16/58 attempts, and committed 20 turnovers.

Furman returns home to tip off its SoCon home schedule on Thursday against UNC Greensboro in a 7p.m. game at Timmons Arena.

Take a look at the stats here.

Furman freshman Braden Dunham has been called up to the United States U-19 Men’s National Team.

Dunham, who earned Southern Conference Freshman of the Year honors and was ranked as the No. 2 freshman in the country this season by Top Drawer Soccer, is one of 16 U-19 players called up for the U.S. U18, U19 & U20 MNT Domestic Training Camp, which will be held Jan. 10-17 in Mesa, Ariz.

Dunham netted seven goals to help lead Furman to a 16-2-5 record, the SoCon regular-season and tournament titles, and the school’s first trip to the NCAA Men’s College Cup. The Peachtree City, Ga., native and Atlanta United FC product scored a thrilling goal from 40 yards out to propel Furman past No 8 seed Portland in the NCAA quarterfinals and assisted on Luke Hutzell’s goal in the national semifinals against eventual national champion Washington en route to earning All- College Cup Team inclusion.

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