The SoCon Lowdown: Furman answers the bell
Plus: a look ahead to the Paladins' opponent in the Round of 32
Resiliency. It’s been the story all year for Furman, a framing naturally set by last season’s heartbreaking buzzer-beater loss to Chattanooga in the SoCon championship. The Paladins learned in that game, and kept learning throughout the 2022-23 season, that they needed to be able to take their opponent’s best punch and stay standing. It’s how they nearly overcame a 21-point deficit against Penn State, overcame a series of late deficits to pull off an overtime win in their first game against Samford, and bounced back from an eight-win-streak-snapping loss to The Citadel by putting together another winning streak.
That streak hit three wins with a dominant blowout of Samford, upending the late-charging favorite for the regular-season title and earning a one seed in Asheville. It rose to five in a thriller against WCU where the Paladins survived a blown 20-point lead of their own, then to six as they outlasted their demons and ended Chattanooga’s run to snap a 43-year tournament drought.
It seemed likely to stop there. Virginia was a tough first-round draw for the Dins’ interior offense, and they took advantage of an early 5:37 drought to go up 17-7 and make Furman look foolish for bothering to show up. But the Paladins took that first punch in stride, hitting a few threes in quick succession to cut the deficit to 21-20. The Cavaliers woke up and pulled out a 32-27 lead at halftime, but the bleeding had been stopped.
Virginia’s defense put on a clinic early in the second half, holding Furman to just a single made three in the first 4:50 and building their advantage to 42-30. The Paladins stayed within arm’s reach, but they couldn’t put together a run for a while, and it started to look like a loss by about ten points was an inevitability. Virginia’s offense was firing on all cylinders, scoring 18 points in the first 8:06 of the half…and then, out of nowhere, Furman turned the tables and made a defensive stand of their own. The Cavaliers didn’t scored for the next 3:27, and after five minutes, their 50-38 lead had dissolved into a narrow 52-48 edge.
It’s easier to describe how the Paladins rise and fall as a group than the individuals who make shots—depth and team play being major factors of their success as well, of course—but these runs weren’t without leaders. Marcus Foster was a standout all game, hitting unlikely threes from every corner of the perimeter and often sparking the offense back to life. Jalen Slawson, of course, was vital down the stretch; between 15:00 and 5:00 in the second half, Furman scored 24 points, and he either shot or assisted on 22 of them. In the last minute of that span, he capped the Dins’ second comeback with a remarkable singlehanded 7-0 run, flipping a four-point deficit into a three-point lead and putting Virginia on the back foot.
To the Cavaliers’ credit, especially that of Armaan Franklin, Kihei Clark, and Kadin Shedrick, they know how to respond too. Presented with numerous must-score possessions in the closing minutes, they kept finding ways to the basket, repeatedly drawing within a point before Furman hit a cold stretch and surrendered the lead. If ever there was a script for a near-upset in the postseason, this was it: the plucky underdog going on a late run and making it interesting for a bit, but running out of shots and falling behind in the last couple minutes.
What felt like the Paladins’ final real chance ended as unceremoniously as that script would suggest. JP Pegues, the star in the SoCon tournament but underwhelming in this game, took the ball to the outside, tried to get one past ACC All-Defensive Team member Clark, and realized his mistake when he promptly threw the ball away.
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story.
Anyway, following that debacle, Isaac McKneely missed the front end of a one-and-one, giving Furman one more chance to overcome their 66-63 advantage. But Foster couldn’t hit from three, and Clark was there to pick up the rebound and take the foul. One of two free throws later, all Virginia had to do was hold a two-possession lead for the final twenty seconds. Shedrick was called for a foul on an authoritative (but certainly physical) shutdown of Garrett Hien in the paint, and the Paladins pulled within two, but there still wasn’t much to be done. Clark, the Cavaliers’ steady presence all day, took the ball for the inbounds.
Reece Beekman handled the pass, then sent it back to Clark, one of the best free-throw shooters on the team despite his earlier miss. Two Furman players, including Pegues, converged to foul him. And then, uh…hey, just like Clark, Slawson is a fifth-year senior who’s seen just about everything. I’m sure he can provide a more nuanced and eloquent description of what happened on this play than I can.
Ah! Well. Nevertheless.
Instead of just standing around and waiting for the clock to run down or for either player to foul him, Clark leapt out of bounds and hurled a pass halfway across the court to god-knows-who. In his defense, a Virginia player did come running to grab it, but a perfectly-taped leap from Hien was just enough to snatch it out of the air. There wasn’t a second of hesitation as he dribbled out of coverage and tossed the ball to Pegues, who shot from well beyond the arc past a desperately-recovering Clark.
Remember last year, when Chattanooga made that game-winning three at the buzzer, also by an unlikely hero, also from well beyond the arc, also through coverage, also after a recent turn of fortune in their opponents’ favor? As if all the magic of the moment weren’t enough, that three never even caught the rim. It’s the kind of shot so perfect, so unreal, that you wonder if you’ll ever see it again in your life.
Huh. Hey, I’m just gonna go back and watch that Pegues shot again. Do you reckon—
…of course.
After all of that, the second round starts tomorrow, which means a matchup with five-seed San Diego State. In leaning more on defense than offense, the Aztecs are similar to Virginia, but that’s where the points of comparison run dry. They’re metrically stronger than their seed, not weaker, and their defense is built on an excellent ability to stifle three-point shooting. In their last two games against tournament-bound Utah State and twelve-seed Charleston, they’ve held opponents to just 9-for-48 from distance.
The upshot is that SDSU’s two-point defense is pedestrian by comparison, and their offense isn’t exceptional, though it’s as good as one would expect from a five seed. In this respect, they’re similar to the Cavaliers—that excellent defense has an exploitable weakness, and Furman is set up well to take advantage of it. As mentioned previously, the Paladins’ offensive strength is going inside for short, efficient shots, set up by their high three-point shooting rate. It’s easy to see how this could become a problem, of course; if the threes aren’t falling, the Aztecs will have a bit more freedom to defend the paint. On the other hand, Furman’s offense hasn’t been predicated on making those shots from distance, just attempting them. They’ll need to hit a few threes to pull the upset, as they did against Virginia, but they can afford to miss quite a bit as long as they open up SDSU’s middling defense inside. Neutralizing a significant size disadvantage by targeting Matt Bradley (6’4”), Adam Seiko (6’3”), and Darrion Trammell (5’10”), all average to poor defenders, will be critical.
Against San Diego State’s offense, nothing is more important than shutting down Seiko from three. Whereas the Paladins bring a stable of solid three-point shooters, the Aztecs only have five, three of whom are unexceptional (Bradley, Micah Parrish, and Lamont Butler) and one of whom is poor (Trammell, under 30% beyond the arc on the season). Only Seiko, who’s 46-for-102 (45.1%), is shooting better than 37% from three. Containing him with Slawson and Hien’s size is essential to limit SDSU’s scoring options.
On paper, the Aztecs are a more difficult opponent than Virginia, but they match up well with Furman’s style of play on both ends of the court, especially when the Paladins have the ball. Charleston was able to hang close for similar reasons, using their excellent three-point defense to limit SDSU to just 4-for-16 from beyond the arc and nearly pulling off a first-round upset. But like Furman, San Diego State has shown impressive resiliency this season as they look to raise their program ceiling, and they displayed it yet again by erasing a seven-point first-half deficit to pull away for the win. The Paladins will need to be nearly perfect to knock them off and keep dancing into the Sweet Sixteen.