For what its worth, Furman won a lot of very close games in the OOC season, 4 or 5 could have easily been losses. This may have led to the fans, myself included, to think that we were far better than most of the upcoming SoCon opponents. I don't think the coaches or players thought this, just some of the fans. A 15-3 record at this point in the season is still very good and I bet better than most of us would have thought it was going to be prior to the season.
Because many of the SoCon teams had mediocre records, with the exception of Samford, some peeps thought the SoCon was "weak"etc. The reality is the SoCon is tougher than I thought it was and any win is going to be hard fought with no games being gimmes.
Also now teams have sort of figured out how to beat Furman and there you have it. We are in for a tough game almost every game. Coach R discussed this in his ETSU post game presser. He mentioned players coming over to his house late Monday night, individual player meetings on Tuesday, and the thought processes behind the lineup change and rotational changes that happened Wed. night. He talked about what the other teams were doing..ie sagging back in the paint off certain players that they thought were not great offensive threats and/or couldn't shoot and the need to "get another shooter on the court".
The good news is the coaches and players have recognized what other teams are doing to stop our offense and now we are in the process of countering that with some changes to the offense. Coach R also mentioned the need to play with more spirit on defense and guard the ball better. He showed film clips to the team at Tuesday's practice of successful defensive possessions earlier in the year.
I expect a great effort against Chatty tomorrow and hopefully our shots will start falling. Have no illusions this will be a tough game.