(19-14) Wichita St. @ (25-7) Furman (March 20th)(NIT First Round)

[dornb]

I am also disappointed, but I am VERY proud of this team and our coaches! Twenty-five wins is a GREAT season! The ESPN announcers were VERY complimentary of Furman and said multiple times what a fun game it was. They said that they were lucky to get to announce the best first-round NIT game. I also loved how Gregg Marshall spent time at the end of the game complimenting our coaches and each of our players! Very classy guy! I will be pulling for WS the rest of the way! Yes, we have some weaknesses and we will miss Matt terribly, but I have confidence that Bob Richey will work with our returning players, recruit some great new players, and have the team ready for another good season next year! Go Paladins!

[Paladin91]

One thing I would have liked to see against Wichita St. is UNCG-like pressure bringing the ball up the court. Some of their big guys didn't have the greatest hands and I think we could have created more errant turnovers. We really didn't apply any full-court pressure until late in the game.

[Affirm]

I say it again and will keep saying it: we need to seek out more WSU-type programs for our OOC schedule every year, even though having to play them at their place, instead of non-D1 home games (at least 1 more WSU-type and at least 1 fewer non-D1 that what this year had).

Agree 100%. Wichita St., Butler, Creighton, Dayton, Xavier, Buffalo

Those are good examples. Also Houston, Tulsa, Cincinnati, Memphis, Temple, Tulane, SMU, etc.
By the way, the AAC's new tv contract is amazing.

[FUBeAR]

One thing I would have liked to see against Wichita St. is UNCG-like pressure bringing the ball up the court. Some of their big guys didn't have the greatest hands and I think we could have created more errant turnovers. We really didn't apply any full-court pressure until late in the game.

On TV, it seemed that the FU crowd deserved an ‘assist’ on those back-to-back TO’s the Shockers had

6:15 Samajae Haynes-Jones made Jumper. 60 - 53
5:53 Alex Hunter made Three Point Jumper. Assisted by Matt Rafferty. 60 - 56
5:33 Asbjorn Midtgaard Turnover. 60 - 56
5:33 Matt Rafferty Steal. 60 - 56
5:20 Foul on Asbjorn Midtgaard. 60 - 56
5:20 Matt Rafferty made Free Throw. 60 - 57
5:20 Matt Rafferty made Free Throw. 60 - 58
5:08 Erik Stevenson Turnover. 60 - 58
4:55 Clay Mounce made Jumper. Assisted by Matt Rafferty. 60 -60

Nice sequence right here. Crowd really mattered, IMO, during this stretch. Be nice to find some way to turn Timmons into “Cameron South.” That 1:20 sounded & looked close to that. It was beautiful!

[Paladin91]

One thing I would have liked to see against Wichita St. is UNCG-like pressure bringing the ball up the court. Some of their big guys didn't have the greatest hands and I think we could have created more errant turnovers. We really didn't apply any full-court pressure until late in the game.

On TV, it seemed that the FU crowd deserved an ‘assist’ on those back-to-back TO’s the Shockers had

6:15 Samajae Haynes-Jones made Jumper. 60 - 53
5:53 Alex Hunter made Three Point Jumper. Assisted by Matt Rafferty. 60 - 56
5:33 Asbjorn Midtgaard Turnover. 60 - 56
5:33 Matt Rafferty Steal. 60 - 56
5:20 Foul on Asbjorn Midtgaard. 60 - 56
5:20 Matt Rafferty made Free Throw. 60 - 57
5:20 Matt Rafferty made Free Throw. 60 - 58
5:08 Erik Stevenson Turnover. 60 - 58
4:55 Clay Mounce made Jumper. Assisted by Matt Rafferty. 60 -60

Nice sequence right here. Crowd really mattered, IMO, during this stretch. Be nice to find some way to turn Timmons into “Cameron South.” That 1:20 sounded & looked close to that. It was beautiful!

Crowd is definitely a sixth man and the team feeds off of it. Despite the lack of FU fans at the SOCON tournament, the fans and nose were impressive at TImmons. Even the geriatric ward sounded like newborns. Can make all the difference in a game.

[ksummerlin]

To say we were out-coached is a huge stretch. I thought we did as much as we could against them with our size mismatch. We were not only out-sized inside, but outside as well. Those guards and forwards are long. The rebounding has been the achilles all year long in our losses and it killed us again. We simply needed more output from Gurley, Brown, and Hunter if we were going to win this one.

I thought Furman made some excellent adjustments midway through the first half to cut down on the slip screens to the basket. For some reason we didn't execute the same defense that had worked for 24 minutes and gave up two easy buckets on the screens in the last minute. Again, we were out-executed there.

Out-recruited? Absolutely, by a top-40 program and top-20 coach in America -- but not out-coached. That back-door to Mounce to start the second half was a perfect call. I thought we had a couple more opportunities for it later in the half, but just didn't pull the trigger on the pass.

Did we have the game on our fingertips with 2 minutes to go? You bet. And it was great fun. Going into the season, I felt like it was a bit of a rebuild after losing so much to graduation. Rafferty made sure this was no rebuild. If Rafferty had just a little more size with that ability he would be a top-20 player -- and probably not at FU .

Now we have to find a replacement for Rafferty's output. Maybe it comes from improving Mounce's shooting and/or improving Gurley's shooting and passing. It will be important to find the team's identity and determine who will be the go to guy early in the season next year.

Thanks for a great season Paladins and thank you Matt Rafferty for an outstanding year and for choosing Furman University as your home.

[apaladin]

Back to the game. I saw 2 huge turning points that basically cost us the game. Up 31-28 we got outscored 7-0 the last 2:47 to end the half. Big turnaround. We were playing well, had the mo and had taken a 49-45 lead and had a long pass to MR for a layup that they made a good play on and knocked it out of bounds. Bad news is that stopped the clock for the 12:00 minute TV time. MR goes to the bench and we have 5 straight trips without a point, eventually get outscored 11-2 and score 4 points from the 12:00 to the 6:00 minute mark. The play on Rafferty stopped the mo. If he got the layup we would have been up by 6 and the clock would have kept running and maybe we could kept the mo. Tough loss but this has been a great and fun season. If MR had not got hurt in the SoCon tourney I think our road would have been totally different. Someone said we have had more publicity this year than in a long time. Let me correct this to we have had more publicity this than ever before. Congrats to everyone involved with this team especially CBR.

[Paul C]

I observed early in the game their size was going to be an issue and said we’d have to make 40% of our 3s to win....

Now this morning sitting at breakfast pondering if the extended 3pt line contributed to our poor 8/27 shooting from 3 ??

Wonder how this game goes if played under normal rules?

Oh well great season and one I’ll remember for a long time, or at least 2 years from now when we eclipse it.

[Jasper]

Furman lost because:

1. WSU Coach Marshall was prepared for and exploited our ineffective center/ball trap at the top of the key defensive scheme that resulted in their big men getting 4 or 5 uncontested layups in the early going. That is the same defensive scheme used in the infamous loss to Samford when we blew a double digit lead. Too much of a gift. Burn that page in the playbook. Those easy buckets enabled them to shoot 50% from the field - 10 points higher than they average. Too much size even for superman Raff to handle.
2. WSU is a really good program with an excellent coach. They may win the NIT and will certainly be a nationally ranked team next season with all those returning. Gregg Marshall is a big time coach. McDuffie is an All American next year.
3. Since we insist on shooting so many 3's - some as a first option on 3 on 1 fast breaks - we need to make better than 29% of them. I have said all along that FU needs to make 40% of them to beat good teams. We didn't.
4. We had too many players not show up.

Why the game was close: MATT RAFFERTY - this kid conjured up thoughts of Maurice Stokes of St. Francis of Loretto in a long ago NIT when it was all played at the Garden. This may have been the best game played by a man with an injured shooting hand in the history of the tournament. His courage, skill and tenacity was magnificent to behold and his performance in this game and throughout the season should never be forgotten in the annals of FU basketball. Matt Rafferty single handedly willed Furman into almost winning this game in which we were outmatched. That's the stuff that Gola, Bradley, Oscar, Magic, etc. were made of. I regret that this great player never made it to the national stage in the NIT finals that he so deserves. They would have loved this kid in NYC. To borrow from Bob Hope - Thanks for the memories, Matt.

It was a fun season in which FU basketball was relevant. The crowd was great yesterday and was a factor in the game - students and just plain folks. Proving once again that to be relevant, you need to win. WSU travels well because they are a very relevant program with a recent appearance in the Final 4. That is big time. So was FU yesterday.

[PaladinPower]

If anyone on this board wants to sit and gripe about last night's loss, go ahead and join the Wofford band wagon because we don't need that here.

People need to realize that Furman....Furman just went toe to toe with a team from a POWER conference that made 7 NCAA tourneys in a row until tonight. They did NOT get out coached. They got outsized, which is obvious looking at the rebounding numbers. Our game isn't chasing O-rebounds, it is getting back in transition and playing solid defense - which led to 8 steals. Of course we could have shot the ball better and probably would have won, but that wasn't because of WS's defense.

If you can't sit back and just admire and be proud of Matt Rafferty's toughness and this team's fight all season, then find a new team to cheer for. This team has far exceeded any pre-season expectations and to cut them down after last night is just cruel.

[soconjohn]

Whoever thinks Clemson will breeze by that bunch has no clue about basketball...This year’s Wofford team, 2008 Davidson, 1999 CofC and that team are some of the best teams to ever come to Timmons Arena...That team almost beat No. 20 something Cincinnati who beat 31-win Houston to win the AAC...Lack of overall basketball acumen on this board never ceases to amaze me...Certainly that’s an exception rather than the rule....The same people that thing “it could be a long year next year” said these same things last year.

[Jasper]

Did someone suggest that "Clemson will breeze past that bunch"? I cant find that in the thread.

[FUBeAR]

Did someone suggest that "Clemson will breeze past that bunch"? I cant find that in the thread.

Yes...

Great season, we got outplayed and outcoached. No consistancy, no points off the bench. Clemson should breeze by this team.

[Jasper]

I would be very surprised if that happens.

[apaladin]

Does he mean the same Clempson team that scored 16 points in the second half against NC State?