After a heartbreaking loss to Wofford on March 10 in the Southern Conference Championship Final, the Paladins officially announced that they accepted an invite to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) on March 17. They faced off against the second-seeded North Texas Mean Green on March 19th for the first round.
Despite being predicted as 7.5 point underdogs, Furman led the first half 34-32 following a strong offensive performance. The highest scorer of the game was freshman guard Eddrin Bronson who scored 15 points and was 3-of-3 on 3-point shots. Other notable players included junior guard Tom House with 13 points and graduate guard Nick Anderson with 12.
To begin the second half, the Mean Green made two consecutive 3-pointers and two free throws to establish a firm lead of 45-36 with 16 minutes left in the game. The Paladins also had significant fouling trouble, with only two free throws made out of four attempts compared to North Texas’s 11 points from 13 attempts. The game concluded with the Mean Green defeating the Paladins 75-64 and officially drawing the 2024-2025 season for Furman to a close.
Despite their final loss in the NIT tournament, Furmanachieved several notable achievements during the season. The Dins had a seven-game winning streak until their loss to the Kansas Jayhawks on Nov. 30, 2024, and finished the non-conference season with an impressive 12-1 record. The Paladins won two games off of a last-second three-pointer by senior guard PJay Smith Jr. during the season against Belmont on Nov. 8, 2024 and Wofford on March 1, 2025. Furman performed strong in the Southern Conference tournament with a dominant season winover Samford and a thrilling overtime victory over Chattanooga.
The Paladins expect to return to a newly renovated Timmons Arena in Fall of 2025 for the start of the 2025-2026 season.