By MONTE DUTTON
The lingo of basketball constantly changes. It’s as if coaches go off to clinics and camps and come back speaking a whole new language.
This has been going on for decades. It’s almost as fast as technology. Every time a fellow feels like he’s caught up, everything changes again.
Once the game was played with a center, two guards and two forwards. Once it was played with peach baskets, too, which begs the question, “Why wasn’t it invented in Gaffney?”
Then it became high and low posts, two wings and a point. The it became just numbers, and for a short time coaches started referring to a player as “a perfect 4” or “easily adaptable to becoming a 2.” This briefly led reporters and broadcasters to act as if they knew what the coaches were talking about while they figured it out.
It’s popular now for players just to play. There’s just one position, and everyone rotates around the court from one role to another. This is more common in colleges because the shot clock runs longer and affords more time for rotation and transmogrification.
The NBA’s latest Star Wars movie is Return of the Center.
For the second time in three years, Furman’s Anna Morgan has been named to the Arnold Palmer Cup Team.
The team for the event, which will be held at Lahinch Golf Club in Clare, Ireland, July 5-7, was unveiled live on Golf Channel’s Golf Central on Tuesday.
A senior from Spartanburg, Morgan is ranked 14th nationally in the latest Scoreboard by clippd rankings. A three-time Southern Conference Player of the Year and two-time SoCon Female Athlete of the Year selection, she holds a 69.6 stroke average over 30 rounds this season, the lowest single-season stroke average in the history of the Paladin program.
“I am incredibly excited to be one of the members selected for the Arnold Palmer Cup Team,” stated Morgan. “Any opportunity to represent the United States is an honor, and I can’t wait to represent in Ireland.”
“I am so proud of Anna’s selection to represent the United States in the Arnold Palmer Cup,” stated Furman head coach Jeff Hull. “This is her second time receiving this honor, and I know she will make us proud. This selection is truly a culmination of a great year and career at Furman.”
The Arnold Palmer Cup was co-founded by Arnold Palmer and the Golf Coaches Association of America and began at the Bay Hill Club & Lodge, Orlando, Fla., in 1997. The event is a Ryder Cup-style tournament featuring the top men’s and women’s university/college golfers matching the United States against a team of international players.
The Palmer Cup has been played at some of the world’s greatest courses, including The Old Course at St. Andrews, The Royal County Down, Royal Portrush, Baltusrol, The Honors Course and Cherry Hills. Beginning with the 2018 matches at Evian Resort Golf Club, the Arnold Palmer Cup is the only major tournament which features men and women playing side-by-side as partners.
United States team selections were Zoe Campos (UCLA), Luke Clanton (Florida State), Maisie Filler (Florida), David Ford (North Carolina), Megha Ganne (Stanford), Ian Gilligan (Florida), Melanie Green (USF), Ben James (Virginia), Jackson Koivun (Auburn), Rachel Kuehn (Wake Forest), Michael La Sasso (Ole Miss), Jack Lundin (Missouri), Anna Morgan (Furman), Farah O’Keefe (Texas), Catherine Park (Southern California), Kiara Romero (Oregon), Amanda Sambach (Virginia), Gordon Sargent (Vanderbilt), Preston Summerhays (Arizona State), and Brendan Valdes (Auburn).
Mary Kelly Mulcahy (Findlay) and Jackson Klutznick (Emory) were the non-Division I selections. Head Coaches Matt Thurmond and Garrett Runion selected Jackson Van Paris (Vanderbilt) and Latanna Stone (LSU), respectively, as their coach’s picks.
International team selections include Bastien Amat (New Mexico; France), Josele Ballester (Arizona State; Spain), Carla Bernat (Kansas State; Spain), Emma Bunch (New Mexico State; Denmark), Adela Cernousek (Texas A&M; France), Hannah Darling (South Carolina; Scotland), Santiago de la Fuente (Houston; Mexico), Wenyi Ding (Arizona State; China), Maria José Marin (Arkansas; Colombia), Max Kennedy (Louisville; Ireland), Julia Lopez Ramirez (Mississippi State; Spain), Caitlyn Macnab (Ole Miss; South Africa), Paula Martín Sampedro (Stanford; Spain), Omar Morales (UCLA, Mexico), Jacob Skov Olesen (Arkansas; Denmark), Louise Rydqvist (South Carolina; Sweden), Calum Scott (Texas Tech; Scotland), Mirabel Ting (Florida State; Malaysia), Ben van Wyk (Georgia; South Africa), and Sampson Zheng (California; China).
Ryan Griffin (Maynooth; Ireland) and Kate Lanigan (Maynooth; Ireland) were selected as representatives of The R&A’s Student Tour Series. Head Coaches Rhyll Brinsmead and Barry Fennelly selected Sara Byrne (Miami; Ireland) and Filip Jakubcik (Arizona; Czech Republic), respectively, as their coach’s picks.
Morgan is Southern Conference Women’s Golf Player of the Year for the third-consecutive season, and Paladin freshman Audrey Ryu also earned postseason honors, as announced today by the league office.
Morgan and Ryu were both named to the All-SoCon team, while Ryu also claimed a spot on the SoCon all-freshman team. The teams are selected by a combination of rankings and a vote of the league’s nine head coaches.
Morgan is the Paladins’ 20th SoCon Player of the Year and the seventh since Furman head coach Jeff Hull joined the program. The Paladins have won the award in five of the last six years it has been given.
Ryu, who hails from Dublin, Ohio, is the third-ranked player in the SoCon and is second for the Paladins and third in the league with a 72.70 stroke average over 30 rounds, the lowest stroke average by a Furman freshman in the history of the program.
Sophomore Harris Barth (-4) finished eighth and was one of three Paladins to shoot under par Tuesday in the final round of the 2024 Southern Conference Championship at par-72, 7,174-yard The Oconee Course at Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Ga.
Barth, a native of Atlanta, birdied four holes on the front, including three of four holes before the turn, then added birdies on Nos. 10 and 12. He finished the day with a 2-under 70.
Senior Walker Crosby (-1) also shot a 2-under 70 after tallying four birdies and an eagle on the par-4 No. 4. He tied for 10th, his best at a league championship. Junior Trey Diehl (+2), who appeared in his first SoCon Championship, notched a team-high seven birdies, all in a ten-hole span, to pace Furman with a 3-under 69 on Tuesday and tie for 15th.
No. 20 East Tennessee State (-30) won the SoCon title by two strokes over 43rd-ranked Chattanooga (-28) to earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Regional. No. 40 UNC Greensboro (-8) finished third, followed by the fourth-place Paladins (E). Mercer (+10) rounded out the top five.
Matty Dodd-Berry (-13) and Mats Ege (-13), both of ETSU, tied for the individual lead with a 13-under 203.
Sierra Tufts is Southern Conference Softball Pitcher of the Week.
Tufts spearheaded Furman’s best-of-three series victory over Wofford by going 2-0 with a 0.50 ERA i against the Terriers. In Friday’s series opener, Tufts hurled a complete-game, one-hit shutout as Furman edged its upstate rivals 1-0. She fanned a career-best 10 batters without issuing a walk and faced just one batter over the minimum.
With the series tied 1-1 on Saturday, Tufts held Wofford to a run on three hits over seven innings of work in the series finale as the Paladins grabbed a 6-1 series win. The senior righthander totaled 117 pitches and struck out four Terriers en route to her second win of the weekend.
Furman (21-26, 6-9 SoCon) travels to first-place Chattanooga for a three-game league series this weekend. The Paladins and Mocs are set for a 1 p.m. doubleheader at Frost Stadium in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Saturday with the series finale slated for 2 p.m. on Sunday.
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