{"id":7882,"date":"2018-12-03T13:52:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T18:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2018\/12\/03\/furman-ranked-for-the-first-time-in-106-year-history-of-mens-basketball\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T20:02:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T01:02:43","slug":"furman-ranked-for-the-first-time-in-106-year-history-of-mens-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-ranked-for-the-first-time-in-106-year-history-of-mens-basketball\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman ranked for the first time in 106-year history of men&#8217;s basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The first 8-0 start in the 106-year history of men&#8217;s basketball at Furman has resulted in the first national ranking in the 106-year history of men&#8217;s basketball at Furman.\u00a0The Paladins are No. 25 in this week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/collegebasketball.ap.org\/poll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Associated Press Top 25 poll.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Furman had received votes in each of the prior two weeks after <a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/m-baskbl\/2018-19\/releases\/20181117vs5p7c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">stunning No. 8 and defending national champion Villanova<\/a> 76-68 on Nov. 17 and edging Loyola Chicago, also a 2018 Final Four participant, 60-58 on Nov. 9 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2MWEpwJ-Q40\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">compliments of a last-second dunk<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/m-baskbl\/2018-19\/bios\/mounce_clay_tgzl?view=bio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clay Mounce &#8217;21.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In between those games, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/m-baskbl\/2018-19\/bios\/lyons_jordan_10t7?view=bio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jordan Lyons &#8217;20<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/2018\/11\/16\/lyons-ncaa-record-15-3-pointers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tied the NCAA Division I record<\/a> by hitting 15 3-pointers and scoring 54 points in 107-67 win over North Greenville. It was the highest single-game scoring total by a Furman player since Darrell Floyd &#8217;56 poured 62 on The Citadel in 1956 and contributed to nine days in which the men&#8217;s basketball program <a href=\"https:\/\/news.furman.edu\/2018\/11\/19\/villanova-upset\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">received more national media attention<\/a> than perhaps at any other time.<\/p>\n<p>Furman, one of 11 remaining unbeaten NCAA Division I teams, also\u00a0becomes the first Southern Conference school to be ranked since former member Davidson was 22nd on Dec. 15, 2008.<\/p>\n<p>The Paladins, victorious in 15 of their last 16 contests dating back to last season, have shown a knack for winning close games with three overtime victories already in 2018-19 that have featured a total of 45 lead changes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/news\/basketball-men\/article\/2018-12-03\/one-unusual-fact-about-all-11-unbeaten-college-basketball\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to NCAA.com<\/a>.\u00a0Furman\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/m-baskbl\/2018-19\/releases\/20181201tvbb0e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fought off Western Carolina<\/a> 90-88 in double overtime on Saturday at Timmons Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Lyons leads the team in scoring by averaging 21.1 points per game, while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/m-baskbl\/2018-19\/bios\/rafferty_matt_wrok?view=bio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matt Rafferty &#8217;19<\/a> averages 18.8 points to go with a team-best 9.5 rebounds and 4.4 assists.<\/p>\n<p>Furman travels to 3-5 Elon on Tuesday, Dec. 4, followed by a trip to Spartanburg to take on USC-Upstate on Saturday, Dec. 8. The Paladins&#8217; next home game is Tuesday, Dec. 11, against Charleston Southern.<\/p>\n<p>Tipoff is 7 p.m., and tickets <a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/tickets\/landing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">can be purchased here<\/a>. For more on Furman&#8217;s first national ranking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.furmanpaladins.com\/sports\/m-baskbl\/2018-19\/releases\/20181203id6b4m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">visit Furman.Paladins.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first 8-0 start in the 106-year history of men&#8217;s basketball at Furman has resulted in the first national ranking in the 106-year history of men&#8217;s basketball at Furman.\u00a0The Paladins [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":7883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}