Men’s basketball looks to earn high seed in SoCon tournament

We are now coming down to the wire. The playoffs are rapidly approaching and with three games left in the season, your Furman Paladins sit at 13-13 (7-8 in SoCon). Not too shabby for the team that lost 5 seniors from last year.

The team has responded well to lack of seniority, integrating young talent into the lineup with the likes of freshmen Dominic Early, David Brown, and Jordan Loyd. The Paladins' strengths and weaknesses are related: the games are low scoring.

As diehard fan Junior Rob Picardi said, "We have been playing great defense, we just need to let some players go crazy on offense." The season is far from over, and Furman is playing well enough to beat anyone in the SoCon on a given day.

Everything comes down to the SoCon championship, which begins Mar. 2 in Asheville. A good run in the final three games will boost momentum and could help Furman jump a few seeds in the tournament. The Paladins are currently in fifth out of the six teams in the South Division and five games behind the leader, Davidson. However, the South is much stronger than the North Division and Furman can assuredly contend.

The SoCon champion receives an automatic bid to March Madness, projected most recently to land in the South Region as a 14 seed against Marquette. Furman faces Samford away on Feb. 18 and the last home game is Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. in Timmons Arena. The team will travel to Wofford on Feb. 25 to wrap up the regular season.