The SoCon Lowdown: We sleep in May
Plus: Samford and UNCG pack their bags, WCU plays on, and Wofford perplexes
Good evening! For the first time in 15,715 days, Furman will play an NCAA tournament game tomorrow. It’s a fun matchup for the 27-7 Paladins—they’ll meet 25-7 Virginia in Orlando, a matchup featuring fantastic play in the paint and rife with upset potential. Working out the formula for a potential Furman win is no easy task, however. What could be the keys to the second tournament win in program history, and the first in nearly 50 years? Well, let’s take a look at the matchups and see what we can figure out…
The main reason this matchup is so exciting—aside from the fact that it pits two teams less than 400 miles apart that have somehow played just once—is the tantalizing matchup of Furman’s inside offense against Virginia’s stalwart defense. The Paladins shot 50-for-84 (59.5%) from two during the SoCon tournament, solidifying their position at the very top of the D1 leaderboard in that stat. Jalen Slawson is lethal on short shots and dunks (142-for-210), with Garrett Hien (80-for-104) and JP Pegues (63-for-101, 15-for-21 in Asheville); Mike Bothwell stretches defense with his ability to hit from distance, making over half (37-for-73) of his mid-range shots inside the arc. The offense lacks an exceptional three-point shooter (though almost every player on the roster is capable enough), but the Paladins have six players shooting over .600 from two, all on 39 or more attempts.
Nobody has been able to truly neutralize this attack all year, even in Furman’s worst games. They haven’t shot worse than 50% from two all year, and they finished the season shooting 57% or better inside the arc in their last six games. On the other hand, it’s taken a rare performance to hit shots at such a rate against Virginia, which only five teams have done all season. The Paladins rely a lot more on spacing and overloading defenses within the three-point line than most teams, but they do still need to go up in the post to create those matchups. And it’s not like the three, as pedestrian as it is, doesn’t factor into this offense. Furman shoots it at the thirteenth-highest clip in the country, as much to force defenses to leave the paint underguarded as to make use of their depth from distance.
Furman is good because they hit shots from two, yes, but their offense is built around setting up those shots at a foundational level. The core philosophy isn’t using their physicality to overwhelm opponents at the rim; it’s using their speed and ball movement to maximize the number of potential shots, forcing defenses to cover them at all points. This is hardly impossible for Virginia, an excellent defensive team with strong coaching that protects the key well, to handle, but it’s a good deal more complicated than just overpowering the Paladins with sheer size.
The defensive end is where Furman really has to step up. Slawson, the 2022 SoCon Defensive Player of the Year, is the spark plug here, but the Dins lack for other good defenders, and Bothwell in particular is a serious liability. They’re much better against the three, which hints at the main way this defense holds opponents down: running down the shot clock and forcing bad attempts, often from distance. Furman’s defense on distance shots craters when they’re assisted, but they excel at forcing teams to throw up desperate attempts in late situations. Just as their own attack leans on building good opportunities, their defense relies on bad shot selection from their opponents. This isn’t a team that will be fazed by Virginia’s ultra-slow offense, though it remains to be seen whether the Cavaliers will be better equipped to handle late-clock situations than most teams the Paladins have faced.
That slow offense, limiting the number of possessions in a game, historically tends to make Virginia a bit more upset-prone than comparable teams. (Fun fact: this concept was partially codified by Furman professors Liz Bouzarth, John Harris, and Kevin Hutson.) And the Paladins certainly have the capability to get hot, even against strong opponents; way back in their third game of the year, during the Charleston Classic, they put together a second-half surge to outscore Penn State 39-27 after halftime and nearly overcome a 21-point deficit. Get lucky with the limited number of shots from three, keep Virginia on their toes inside the arc, and who knows? Maybe Furman can keep dancing for a day or two longer.
In other news…
UNC-Greensboro and Samford likely turned down CBI invites after first-round losses in the SoCon Tournament presumably knocked them out of the NIT field. It’s a disappointing end to the season for both teams, especially with senior-heavy rosters. In all likelihood, it marks the end of storied careers like those of Keyshaun and Kobe Langley, Keondre Kennedy, Bas Leyte, Mohammed Abdulsalam, Dante Treacy, Logan Dye, and Bubba Parham.
Western Carolina, however, had no such qualms about accepting a postseason bid, one year after finishing dead last in the conference. The Catamounts are headed to the CBI, where they’ll meet Charlotte in their first-round game on Saturday.
Wofford is leaning towards hiring Alabama-Huntsville coach John Shulman, spurning both interim HC Dwight Perry (who went 11-11 and upset Texas A&M and UNCG) and Virginia Tech assistant Kevin Giltner. SoCon Freshman of the Year Jackson Paveletzke and graduates BJ Mack and Messiah Jones all entered the transfer portal not long after the Terriers indicated strong interest in Shulman. Something is rotten in Spartanburg.
VMI’s Tyler Houser and Tony Felder Jr. and Mercer’s Shawn Walker Jr. and Kamar Robertson are among the other impact transfers by non-graduates. The Citadel’s Stephen Clark and Brady Spence, ETSU’s DeAnthony Tipler, and VMI’s Sean Conway are the most notable grad transfers. (Thanks to the WCU ProBoards for compiling this information!)