injury reports<\/a> at those times during the postseason.<\/p>\nA paladin represents a knightly, heroic figure, symbolizing strength and integrity. The Furman Paladins? Here\u2019s the run down if you don\u2019t know much about them this year.<\/p>\n
Picked to finish second in the SoCon preseason poll, the Paladins dealt with the injury bug for stretches of the year and ultimately finished sixth. The team has three double figure per game scorers, led by star freshman guard Alex Wilkins and his 17.7 points per game. Wilkins ranks 13th nationally in freshman scoring average while being tied for seventh in assists at 4.7 assist per game. In the SoCon semifinals he scored 34 points – one of two 30+ point games he\u2019s had this year – to help Furman knock off UNC Greensboro.<\/p>\n
Forwards Cooper Bowser and Asa Thomas are the other two in double figures, averaging 14 PPG and 12.4 PPG respectively. Both players missed some time, but are healthy now. Bowser is a junior who\u2019s spent his entire career with the Paladins so far along with his younger brother Cole, who\u2019s a freshman reserve who scores 5.1 PPG. Thomas transferred over for his sophomore year after being an end-of-the-bench guy at Clemson last year and is a big time perimeter threat. He takes 7.5 threes per game and hits at a 39% clip.<\/p>\n
Australian big man Charles Johnston nearly averages a double-double, putting up 9.8 points and 9.1 rebounds a night. Four-year Paladin guard Ben Vander Wal is set to move into a tie for fifth all time in games played in program history on Friday, while Tom House and Eddrin Bronson round out the rotation as guards who have made big plays at crucial times this season.<\/p>\n
Furman actually opened the year with its first four games against Division I opponents coming against NCAA tournament teams. The Paladins went 1-3 in those games, falling to High Point, Troy and Northern Iowa while beating Queens.<\/p>\n
Blindly, here are the heights of the starters for both UConn and Furman from each of their last games.<\/p>\n
Team A: 6-foot-5, 6-foot-4, 6-foot-7, 6-foot-11 and 6-foot-11<\/p>\n
Team B: 6-foot-5, 6-foot-4 , 6-foot-6, 6-foot-8 and 6-foot-11<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re not sure who is who, the team on top is the Paladins and the team on the bottom is the Huskies. Furman also brings three guards off the bench, all of which are listed at 6-foot-6 or 6-foot-7. That\u2019s a really big team to be coming out of the SoCon and one that you wouldn\u2019t expect to see when you\u2019re a 2-seed facing off against a 15-seed.<\/p>\n
One of the individual matchups that peaks my interest the most in this game is the one down low between Tarris Reed Jr. and Cooper Bowser. We all know what Reed can do, most recently being the only viable option to get any sort of offense in the Big East Championship game. Bowser is fascinating as well. He and Johnston alternate who is acting as the true \u201ccenter\u201d, but Bowser does most of his work around the rim and does it well. Bowser shoots 77% from the field, the highest mark in the nation amongst qualifiers. Last year, Samson Johnson shot 76.6% from the field, so picture his efficiency, just double the production.<\/p>\n
One final point on Furman. The last time that the Paladins made the NCAA Tournament in 2023, they surprised a lot of people and knocked off 4-seed Virginia in the Round of 64 on a last second shot after a foolish Cavalier turnover. Leading by two, Kihei Clark of Virginia threw an errant pass while the Paladins were trying to foul and Furman got a steal that led to a buzzer beating heave from JP Pegues from beyond the arc that went down, handing the team their second NCAAT win in program history.<\/p>\n
Furman would lose to San Diego State in the next round, the same Aztec team that UConn beat in the National Championship that year. The roster is nearly completely different for the Paladins \u2014 only Vander Wal remains in terms of players who played in that game against Virginia \u2014 but they\u2019ve still have that under their belt. Not saying it will happen again, but March magic has been on Furman\u2019s side before.<\/p>\n
Shooting struggles continue<\/p>\n
In UConn\u2019s past two losses to Marquette and St. John\u2019s, the team shot 3-24 and 3-19 from three. The formula for an early exit in the tournament is clear for the Huskies: shoot poorly from three and you\u2019re heading home.<\/p>\n
There are some concerning individual struggles too, not things you want to be talking about this time of year. Braylon Mullins tied his career high with six made threes against Creighton on Feb. 18, but in the past seven games, adding up to a month, he\u2019s shot 23% from three including a combined 2-15 in the losses. Solo Ball is shooting is shooting 30% from three during that same time period. Alex Karaban had some success shooting late in the regular season, but shot 28% from three in the Big East Tournament.<\/p>\n
Having your three top shooters this cold entering the most important time of the year is concerning, to say the least. The silver lining is that UConn always seems to turn it up a notch in March.<\/p>\n
Speaking of that, the infamous loss to Teddy Allen and New Mexico State in 2022 completely altered the direction of Dan Hurley\u2019s program. In games against non-Big East opponents since that loss, the Huskies are an astounding 52-6 and 13-1 in NCAA Tournament play.<\/p>\n
Hurley always mentions that his teams are built to fare better in the non-conference, often citing the range of motion that goes on is much different and that the refs call the game differently. He certainly has the stats and numbers to back that up, seeing just how dominant the team has been. Half of those losses came in last year\u2019s Maui Invitational when the Huskies dropped all three games to Memphis, Colorado and Dayton. Outside of that, they\u2019ve been nearly flawless with the three losses to Florida, Arizona and Kansas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UConn men\u2019s basketball (29-5) is set to begin its 2026 March Madness journey on Friday night as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,2681],"class_list":{"0":"post-668511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab","13":"tag-uconn-mens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116261031084307160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}