By MONTE DUTTON
As the Southern Conference men’s basketball regular season winds down, the Ingles SoCon championships, March 6-9 at Harrah’s Cherokee Center, get more wide-open.
Furman held The Citadel to just 20 second-half points as the Paladins claimed a 72-51 win on Senior Night at Timmons Arena to secure head coach Bob Richey’s 200th career victory.
“It’s kind of crazy that it’s Senior [Night],” said Ben Vander Wal. “I’m so grateful for my time here. I’m so grateful to the guys I got to do it with. It was a fun atmosphere out there. The students were great.
“Basketball is a great game, and we’ve all gotten to enjoy it and play it at a high level. A lot of us dreamed of it when we were kids. We stayed the course. There were choppy waters sometime, but we stayed with it.
Vander Wal, Charles Johnston, Tom House and Thomas Tillman took their final bows at the home arena.
Furman (19-11, 10-7 SoCon) outrebounded Citadel, 50-20. Think about that.
Citadel seemed to abandon the boards.
“Part of it was schematically for them, I believe,” Richey said. “I think they wanted to make sure that we didn’t get going in transition. They didn’t really crash the offensive glass. They were more focused on getting back.
“I think our guys are taking pride in let’s go win the rim. … It doesn’t really mean much to be big if you can’t play big. That’s something we’ve put an emphasis on these last two games. We can be as big as we want to be. We’ve got to play big.”
The Citadel (9-21, 6-11) lost its fifth straight, though Furman led only 33-31 at half. The latter half was a festival.
Meanwhile, Wofford was upsetting top-seeded East Tennessee State, 72-69. Western Carolina was defeating Mercer, 78-74. Thursday finds UNC Greensboro at Chattanooga and VMI at Samford.
With a game ahead at Western Carolina on Saturday, the Paladins are tied for third in the standings with Mercer (18-12, 10-7), three games behind ETSU (21-9, 13-4) and one behind Wofford (19-11, 11-6). Furman leads Samford (16-13, 9-7), likely to at win home versus VMI (6-12, 1-15), by a half game and Western (13-15, 9-8) by one.
In addition to the Paladins and Catamounts on Saturday, VMI visits Chattanooga, Citadel heads to Wofford, ETSU is at Mercer and UNCG at Samford.
With the exception of ETSU at the top and VMI at the bottom, the tournament seeds remain tenuous.
The Paladins limited The Citadel to .333 (8/24) shooting in the second half and finished the game on a 29-10 run to earn a regular-season split of the series versus the Bulldogs in the 225th meeting between the rivals. After The Citadel trimmed Furman’s lead to 43-41 with 15:07 to go, the Paladins embarked on a 14-3 run over the next eight minutes while holding the Bulldogs to a single basket for a stretch of over 8:30. Cooper Bowser capped the Furman run with a pair of dunks and two free throws to help the Paladins build a double-digit lead.
Bowser, who did not play in the first meeting against The Citadel, tallied a team-high 14 points and senior Charles Johnston posted his 11th double-double of the year and 16th double-digit rebounding performance with 13 points and 13 boards. Senior Tom House went 4/-4 at the foul line to add 11 points.
Despite a 5/23 night behind the arc, Furman shot .429 from the field and converted 9/-25 free throws. The Paladins totaled 19 second-chance points off their 19 offensive rebounds.
Braxton Williams of Citadel led all scorers with 25 points on 9/21 shooting from the field, including a 6/15 effort from three-point range, but Furman held him scoreless over the final 15:59. The Citadel connected on .389 of their shots, hit just 7/28 three-pointers, and finished the night 2/8 at the foul line.
Richey, in his ninth season as Paladin head coach, became just the second Furman men’s basketball coach to reach 200 wins and his .685 career winning percentage is the highest in school history.
The biggest roar from the crowd of approximately 2,500 was the late-game entry of walk-on senior Tillman. Cooper Bowser led Furman with 14 points. Johnston matched 13 points with 13 rebounds. House scored 11 points. Alex Wilkins scored just eight but handed out five assists. Nine players scored. Tillman started, made an early foul, and had his only shot blocked with 10 seconds left.
Of Tillman, a Charleston native, Johnston said, “You can really tell he loves this. … He’s probably one of the most genuine guys I’ve ever met. I can’t speak more highly of what he’s meant to this program.
“He’s an exceptional human being.”
Take a look at the stats here.
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