WHATS LEFT

[apaladin]

Hard to believe only 6 regular season games left as it looks like the UTC and Sammy games won’t be made up.
2/13. WCU
2/17 SAMFORD
2/20 @Mercer
2/22. VMI
2/24. CITADEL
2/27. @Wofford
I am going to go out in a limb and say we win all 4 home games and lose the 2 road games. That would be a 4-2 finish. We certainly could lose any of these games and maybe a 3-3 is more likely. 4-2 would leave us 10-6 and 3-3 would leave us 9-7. Both should have us finishing 5th or 6th. That would put us playing the #3 or #4 seed in the tourney. Just hope that doesn’t turn out to be WC.
IMHO this team never has recovered from the Alabama loss. We were playing pretty well until we blew that game which could have catapulted the team to a great season. Instead it has spawned a disappointing season. Last year FU had 4 20+ point wins in the SoCon and 7 10+ wins. This year we have one 10+ win thanks to uncg shooting 29% Monday. IMHO CBR is/has made a big mistake trying to play too many players now. I bet our 5 best players didn’t play 7-8 minutes together against uncg. Of course the bench has been the biggest disappointment. If you listened to CBR preseason interviews you would have thought Anderson was the next Stockton and Foster the next Pippen. Right now I would play Hein and Pugh and maybe Foster a little off the bench and thats it. Our lack of depth and inconsistency makes a 3 game run in Asheville highly unlikely but I will still pull and cheer as hard as I can for this team.

[purplehorse]

Many excellent points above. We have to hope we have a miraculous finish to this season like Wofford last year. No team in the conference a heavy favorite in the tourney. And all of a sudden our future does not appear to be so bright. Again shocked that with our record and success the last 4 seasons, we don’t have stronger younger classes.

[purplehorse]

Lots of good points above. We have to hope we have a miraculous finish this year like Wofford had last year.

Still surprised that our younger classes are not better based on our success the last 4 years.

[Furmanoid]

Why did we expect so much in the first place? OK 3 years ago we had a couple of spectacular wins early in the season. We had a great record but records can be misleading. The stars of that team are long gone. Have we come close to replacing them? Are we bringing in blue chips because of our success? Not really. We just have the role players from past pretty good years. We don’t have anybody who can decide to make something happen and make anything other than a bad forced shot or turnover happen. We can sometimes shoot a decent percentage if left wide open. That’s our offense. So we’re having a borderline pretty good year with ok players. I allowed myself to believe my eyes were deceiving me, and I bought into the hype, but no more. I don’t think it’s lack of effort or psychic damage from the Alabama game. We don’t miss gimme shots over and over again because we aren’t trying to make them. We can’t make them. Our guys are who they are. They are the guys we want I guess, and we should probably just be happy with third or fourth in the SoCon.

[furpop16]

Why did we expect so much in the first place? OK 3 years ago we had a couple of spectacular wins early in the season. We had a great record but records can be misleading. The stars of that team are long gone. Have we come close to replacing them? Are we bringing in blue chips because of our success? ...

That was the Rafferty-Brown year. Followed by Lyons last year and preceded by the Sibley/Fowler/JDIII/Beans year, and Acox before that. So I disagree with your premise "the stars of that year are long gone", each year before & since has shown its stars. And the stars of this year, with Hunter/Mounce at the helm and Gurley/Slawson/Bothwell/Pugh right behind, brought legitimate optimism. I don't know why a Rafferty or Lyons hasn't emerged from the current crop, but we've suffered disappointment before: Sibley's senior year performance was uneven compared with that of his junior-year. And there's still hope for this year: our whole trajectory began the year before Acox with Croone et al and the 2016 tournament run (after an otherwise disastrous season). Keep the faith.

[apaladin]

Its obvious that a couple of players that practically everyone expected to get better really haven’t and have actually gotten worse. Thats the problem in a nutshell.

[PaladinPower]

This board is getting unreadable. For as smart as Furman fans should be, you'd think there would be some holistic approach to viewing the entire season and not just narrowing in on one bad stretch that literally every team has had over the course of the season. UNCG lost to Coppin St. We beat uncg by 20 on an average night. ETSU and WC have both lost to the Citadel and the pups also dropped a game to VMI like we did. There is no clear favorite and Furman is by and large not at the bottom. Potential to split with all of the "top" 4 teams and sweep everyone else aside from the VMI loss. This team is more than capable of winning out. Some of the comments on this board are a disgrace.

[DungeonRealm]

You need to have context though, this was the year we thought we could finally dominate the SoCon, the disappointment to this point in the fan base is by and large understandable

[DungeonRealm]

I think we will not be content until we actually make the NCAA tourney, that can still happen this year, but until it becomes a reality take everything with a grain of salt

[Furmanoid]

If you look at “the whole season” as has been suggested, I think we are 9-7 vs DI. That’s kind of disappointing even if you didn’t have high expectations.

If we win the tournament it will be a fluke. I can get sort of excited over a fluke NCAA appearance, but it would have been nice to actually belong there. Oh well, as affirm says, good enough I guess.

[PaladinPower]

Winning in Asheville in 2015 would have been a fluke. Winning this season would be FAR from that. The whole season context is that we have split with the other top teams (WC game looming), lost an early game to Cincy, pretty much dominated top 10 Alabama from tip off, had a bad beat against Winthrop, and lost a very winnable game at VMI. Only thing that matters is the Socon tourney and I can see this team still winning there, dominant regular season or not.

[purplehorse]

We could easily win the tournament if every FU starter brought his A game each night. But so far, we have largely been headed in the wrong direction since the 2nd half of the Alabama game. Since conference play, not much to give you real hope. Not sure anyone would say that we have lived up to pre-season expectations.

The good news is the other top 3 have not impressed me either. That game last night was so winnable and if we had won we would be in first place.

[furman86]

Winning in Asheville in 2015 would have been a fluke. Winning this season would be FAR from that. The whole season context is that we have split with the other top teams (WC game looming), lost an early game to Cincy, pretty much dominated top 10 Alabama from tip off, had a bad beat against Winthrop, and lost a very winnable game at VMI. Only thing that matters is the Socon tourney and I can see this team still winning there, dominant regular season or not.

Very true.

When the season started, our SOCON tourney opponents would likely be:

1st round - Chatt or Mercer
2nd round - WC, ETSU, or UNCG
Championship - WC, ETSU, or UNCG

With a few alterations (especially regarding our first round opponent), that remains the same to this date.

The team can play better, and I'm sure CBR and the guys are doing what they can to make it happen. Every game on the rest of our schedule is winnable, including every game in the SOCON tourney. Anyone already closing the books on this season is simply being foolish.

[GOAT]

We have the ability to win every game left on the schedule including SoCon Tournament. Have not been able say that much in last 41 years.

[Furmanoid]

We have the ability to win every game left on the schedule including SoCon Tournament. Have not been able say that much in last 41 years.

That is a good point.