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He’s an excellent FT shooter (84%) who does a great job of getting to the line, but Furman does an excellent job preventing opponents from getting to the line and have the size to slow him down inside just enough to stay under this. Projecting him closer to 14.7 points with around a 65% chance to stay under 16.5

Both teams needed comebacks to make it to today’s Southern Conference Men's Basketball Tournament Championship. While East Tennessee State swept Furman in the regular season, I actually like the Paladins to get their revenge here and punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Let’s get into it. Furman actually had leads in both regular season matchups before falling apart late in each. While blowing leads isn’t something I want to see, it’s important to note that Furman wasn’t easily handled in either game. Also, Alex Wilkins, Furman’s best scorer, had his worst game of the season with 11 turnovers, yet Furman still almost grabbed the win. Wilkins went off for 34 points last night and I think he’s in much better shape to control the ball this time around. What really stands out from the series is how well Furman defended the rim. The Paladins held ETSU to their lowest and third lowest rim FG% of the entire SoCon season. That’s notable considering ETSU’s offense is heavily reliant on cutting and scoring off the ball at the rim with a 99th percentile cut rate. Furman actually won the rim battle in both meetings with relative ease, which is something I always like to note. The two losses came down to variance more than anything. If we look at the Shot Quality data, it gives us an even clearer picture that Furman was never outmatched. Despite losing 69–78 on February 18th, Shot Quality had Furman winning by 16 according to their data. That shows how much better the shots they were getting were and how misleading that final score really was. Furman’s defense is what I really want to back here. Defensively, they own the best effective field goal percentage allowed in the conference and the second best three point percentage allowed. They also don’t foul, which is big against an ETSU offense that loves to get to the line. ETSU attempts the most two pointers in the conference, so Furman’s rim protection will once again be vital. Furman is the fifth tallest team in the entire country, which is why their rim denial has been so strong and why it gives ETSU problems. As long as Furman takes care of the basketball, I think they can punch their ticket to the Big Dance. Our model has Furman winning 72.94 to 72.16. Give me Furman +1.5.