LEXINGTON, Va. – Furman arrived at Virginia Military Institute on Wednesday evening poised to flex its muscles.
Everyone who had been missing arrived at Cameron Hall ready to rock and roll. And so they did, decimating the Keydets, 100-60.
Marcus Foster, J.P. Pegues and Alex Williams all trotted out in the starting lineup averaging 16 or more points a game. It was the first time they all played together since Foster went down with a knee injury at Princeton on Dec. 4.
They had an exceedingly good time against the Keydets. Williams scored 23 points, Foster 18 (all in the latter half), and Pegues handed out five assists and settled for eight points.
It was, however, Carter Whitt who came out firing and ended that way. The junior from Raleigh, N.C., scored 15 points and nabbed two steals in the first 10 minutes, a period in which the Paladins built a 27-17 advantage.
Then Whitt splashed his fifth three-pointer to put Furman at the century mark with 45 seconds to play. He wound up with 21 points – 5/8 outside the arc, 3/7 within it – accompanied by four rebounds and two assists.
Injury and illness wracked the Paladins, but they are rolling now.
“I’m proud of our group,” head coach Bob Richey said to Tom Van Hoy on the post-game radio show. “They’ve been through a ton, but man, they just keep growing. They’re starting to have some fun out there.
“Having Foster back out there, it’s a whole another weapon, a whole another dimension. It was really fun to watch him get comfortable in the second half and go for 18 (points) and 10 (rebounds).”
Furman (9-9, 3-2 SoCon) devastated the fast-paced Keydets at their own game, racing up and down the floor with controlled abandon. The Paladins built a 13-point lead before Pegues took a shot. Tyrese Hughey passed out four assists while taking two shots.
Near the end of the half, the pace didn’t slow but the shooting did. Perhaps winded, both teams stalled with the Paladins leading, 38-23. Furman went dry for the final 5:26, but Pegues canned three free throws with six seconds remaining and the Paladins took a 41-26 edge to the locker room.
Foster did not score but grabbed three rebounds and had an assist in 14 first-half minutes. Ben Vander Wal and Williams each grabbed four rebounds.
The Paladins led VMI (3-15, 0-5) by 19 points early in the second half, but each team scored 10 points in the first five minutes of the second half.
Furman went on an 11-0 run in a span of less than two minutes – Foster hit his first triple since the injury – and led 63-39 with 11:49 to play. PJay Smith buried three from deep and had a four-point play. Another Foster triple swelled the edge to 76-45 at 8:24.
It took Foster a half to find the range, whatever that means, but he did.
“I’ve been working really hard while I was injured,” Foster told Van Hoy. “I didn’t really think it was going to affect me too much. It caught me a little bit, but I think I played better than a lot of people expected.
“I just let the game come to me. I knew it was going to turn for me just as long as I kept my cool. I just played within the offense and trusted that the system would work. That’s what I did.”
Furman experienced no shooting woes, finishing the night with an overall shooting percentage of .480 (36/75), within which was a .486 (18/37) mark from beyond the arc. In the latter half, those figures were .513 and .571, respectively. VMI tried 25 triples and saw five find their marks. The Keydets shot .387 overall.
VMI put three players in double figures – Tyran Cook and Stephen Olowoniyi with 14 points and Devin Butler with 11 – and produced the game’s highest rebounder in Taeshaud Jackson with 13, but Furman, led by Foster’s 10, controlled the boards (45-35) as much as everything else.
“I thought everybody did some great things. … It was fun to see,” Richey said.
Next are a pair of thunderous home games as the SoCon’s premier teams at present, Western Carolina on Saturday and Samford next Wednesday, visit Timmons Arena.
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