Furman Purple Pukes

[woffordgrad94]

Okay, time for the Purple Pukes, the owners of some of the ugliest uniforms in the USA. Furman has improved a bit but overall they are still not all that good and certainly not on our level. But then their football team was downright awful this past year, and we all know about that disasterous Saturday afternoon. But fortuntely, our cagers don't seem to share the same mental block that our football team has when they come face to face with those hideous purple jerseys. If we come out focused and play to our potential for 40 minutes we will have absolutely no trouble notching a double digit win over our hated rivals at home. But we must have HUNGER and URGENCY and the feeling that to let them beat us on our own court would be just awful! So let's take care of business and keep Furman in their place on the SoCon basketball specturm. Go Terriers!

[lawdog]

Furman is an improved team; we will need to play well.

[BigJohn94]

Saw a post on Facebook by Thom, that he got from Collins. They are trying to white out the BenJo for this game. If you go, dress accordingly.

[Terrier13]

Furman will undoubtedly play tough. They put together a very complete game against the Citadel last week in Charleston so I expect them to give us a battle. As long as we're defending champions, the target will rest squarely on our backs. Play tough Terrier D, limit them to one and done by getting defensive rebounds, help out our offense by getting second chance opportunities and stay out of foul trouble. Play fundamental basketball like we know we can (and demonstrated against Western Carolina on Saturday) and we'll walk away with the W. Relapse to how we played the first 5 games of the conference schedule and we become much more beatable.

[boulder3m]

I noticed this morning that Lunardi has once again in his projections of tournament teams left us off in favor of Mercer. He makes Mercer the #66 team. He also had Dayton at #33 before their big loss at Davidson last night, and Davidson is not on the list. We're not only not getting respect, but we're losing respect. First it was Chattanooga, now Mercer. Gotta take care of the Purple people first.

[woffordgrad94]

I think one reason we struggled in a couple of games was the fact that we were hampered by injuries. Not having Eric Garcia and Cameron Jackson available hurt our team depth as well as our overall team strength. We are getting bck to full strength now and we should be better for it. I don't think that "experts" such as Lunardi do enough homework on one-bid mid-major leagues like the SoCon to know things like our injury situation so they just assume we're simply not as good as originlly thought. Not that it matters a whole lot what he thinks at the end of the day anyway, but if we want to change his projection we need only beat Mercer.

[Terrier13]

Spot on 94. I think our injuries really set us back in those games but hopefully we're better for it with some increased experience for our PGs to help lead us down the stretch. Especially for Brooks, you can't buy those kind of minutes/experience for a freshman very often, especially with an established PG like EG already in place. I loved seeing Cameron Jackson come off the bench against WCU- you could tell the lift and energy he gave the team with his play. He's gonna be a good one for us over the next few years.

The only way to earn respect is to just keep winning and the rest will take care of itself. Our team almost plays better without the target on our back- it's a lot easier to be the hunter and not the hunted. Hopefully we keep the fire that we had against WCU on Saturday alive and take it out on Furman tomorrow night.

[wocomouth]

Lunardi and those other bracket guys know the SoCon is a one bid league. They put whomever is in first place in the standings in the tournament. Technically, Mercer is in first place right now.

[Ruckus]

We struggled in the first 5 conference games because we were not as intense as we needed to be defensively. I think we got the message with Cid. Much like last year at this time. We have to be white hot and out of our minds on the defensive end of the floor from the start to the finish. If we do that, we are hard to beat.
Losing EG has definitely hurt us too. Cam's absence didn't help either.

[WTFan]

We really need to improve from game to game from here on out. We still have our most difficult SOCON games (with the exception of the away Chatty game we won) ahead of us. Mercer is a really impressive program. They lost their top 6 players from last year and are 6-1 in the conference! Impressive. We will need our defensive intensity and avoid the cold shooting night when we play them.

[ARTerrier]

Lunardi only knows as much about 'bracketology' as ESPN will fill his pockets. That being said, I always have a hint of uncertainty in my attitude whenever we face Furman. No matter how each program is doing, no matter how far one had fell or another had rose, we let stuff get into our heads sometimes. And WG94, good point that these guys don't share traits of a couple football outings we witnessed last year.

[Terrier13]

One thing to note about Mercer is that while they have put up a 6-1 record so far in conference play, their SOS in conference play has so far been the easiest. I expect them to end up among the SoCon elite when all is said and done but they haven't really faced the best of the SoCon just yet (with the exception of their narrow win at ETSU).

[lawdog]

http://woffordterriers.com/news/2015/1/ ... ath=mbball Preview.

Video link to watch the game. http://www.socondigitalnetwork.com/woff ... n-01222015

[Ruckus]

Please don't mention the football loss again.
Fresh tender scab ripped off a gaping wound.

[lawdog]

Up 38-20 at half. Cochrane hot ... this feels like the first half of the Bellhop game.

In the second half, we must:
PLAY great D, first and foremost (esp. Cochrane and Skinner).
NOT get comfy and rely on outside shots, but rather work it for good shots, going inside a lot.