The Frontrunner: Furman
Entering his sixth year at Furman, Bob Richey has coached the Paladins to top-100 KenPom finishes in each season. Leading scorers Mike Bothwell (15.7 ppg) and Jalen Slawson (14.5 ppg) returning for their fifth-year of eligibility, along with fellow starter Marcus Foster (8.5p, 5.0r), make up one of the best returning cores in the conference.
Helping to replace the loss of five-year Paladin Alex Hunter is former four-star Wake Forest commit Carter Whitt. Lauded out of high school as one of the best passers in the ‘20 class, Whitt’s career shooting and efficiency numbers don’t look like a typical Furman commit at first glance: 34.0 2p%, 27.7 3p%, 97 assists and 93 turnovers. However, his good length at the point guard position and pedigree is exciting to see how he fits in Furman’s principled three-point heavy offense.
A team that always seems to reload rather than rebuild, each year a player or two seem to unexpectedly step up. Whether it’s forwards Garrett Hien and Tyrese Hughley or guards Joe Anderson and JP Pegues, it will be exciting to see which Paladin steps up.
According to KenPom, last season was Furman’s least efficient defensively during the Richey era, partially due to the fact that Furman fielded the fifth shortest team in the D1. Adding a 6’4 guard like Whitt to help replace the 5’11 Alex Hunter and 6’1 Conley Garrison is a good start while the continued development of 6’9 Garett Hein and 6’10 sophomore James Repass could create more rotation opportunities for 6’7 Slawson to play the 4 (about ⅔ of Slawson’s minutes last season were at the 5).
Richey’s teams shoot a ton of threes and share the ball well. With All-Southern Conference First team selections Mike Bothwell and Jalen Slawson returning and a wide array of promising underclassmen ready to step up, the Paladins are my favorite to win the SoCon.
The Underdog: Samford
Recently finishing their fourteenth season in the SoCon, Samford finished with their first .500 or better conference record thanks to the lights out scoring of Florida transfer Ques Glover (19.2 ppg, 4.4 apg), Akron transfer Jermaine Marshall (13.0 ppg, 8.2 rpg) and fifth-year returnee Logan Dye (12.7 ppg, 5.3 rpg). In addition to this upperclassmen trio, Samford added former VMI and Georgia Tech guard Bubba Parham, who averaged 21.4 ppg and 3.6 threes per game his last season at VMI.
Overall, Samford’s backcourt is stacked: the combination of Glover, Parham, Jaden Campbell, Cooper Kaifes, Jaron Rillie and AJ Staton-McCray gives third-year head coach Bucky McMillan six guards and wings who averaged 17+ minutes per game last season.
The frontcourt lost part-time starting big Jacob Tryon and former top-100 commit Wesley Cardet, but Marshall and Dye make up one of the best frontcourt duos in the nation. Adding depth to the frontcourt is 6’7 205 UMBC senior Nathan Johnson, who averaged 6.6 ppg and shot 45.6% from three last season.
In order to take the next step, Samford needs to limit turnovers (more of Bubba Parham’s 9.0% turnover rate and less of Wesley Cardet’’s 25.8% turnover rate and Jason Rillie’s 32.8% turnover rate could help) and also improve their defense. Their defense ranked 247th in efficiency last season, but considering that the SoCon was much more of an offensive than defensive league last season, Samford’s efficiency ranked fifth in conference play, so just a slight improvement on defense could go a long way.
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