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Men's Basketball

VMI Tangles With Furman Wednesday in Greenville

LEADING OFF – VMI (11-9, 4-4 SoCon) returns to the road Wednesday night when it faces its first SoCon opponent for the second time this season in the Furman Paladins. Tipoff from Timmons Arena will be 7 pm. The Keydets will be seeking a regular season sweep over the Paladins after defeating them, 76-67, at Cameron Hall on New Year's Day. VMI will be looking to get back on the winning track after having its two-game win streak snapped by league leading Chattanooga, 74-70, last Saturday in Lexington. Furman enters Wednesday's game off an impressive showing at conference rival Wofford – rolling to a 75-50 win and snapping the Terriers' three-game win streak. The Paladins (14-7, 6-2) have won five of their last six since falling to the Keydets over three weeks ago and carry a 9-1 home mark on the year. VMI and Furman rank 1-2 in the country in 3-pointers made per game with the Keydets at 12.7 per contest and Furman tied with Oral Roberts for second at 12.2. VMI has moved to the top of the SoCon in scoring averaging 79.9 points a game and the Keydets continue to excel in several other statistical categories and pace the circuit in free throw percentage (.789), field goal percentage defense (.390), defensive rebounds (29.6) and 3-point field goals per game (12.7).
 
LAST TIME OUT - League-leading Chattanooga hung on for a 78-74 victory over VMI team Saturday afternoon at Cameron Hall. The Keydets rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit to take a 74-73 lead on a Trey Bonham layup with 1:24 left. The Mocs' Malachi Smith, the leading scorer in the conference, answered with a jumper and after a steal on the other end, David Jean-Baptiste sunk two free throws with 16 seconds left to make it a 77-74 Chattanooga lead. VMI worked the ball around but junior Kamdyn Curfman's three-pointer in the closing seconds left rimmed out. Freshman Honor Huff scored a career-high 25 points, shooting 8-of-12 from the floor, his third-straight game setting a new top mark. He scored 21 at The Citadel last Saturday and 23 against Samford Thursday, both VMI victories. Jake Stephens netted 20 with seven rebounds, four treys and two blocks and Curfman had 16, nailing four three-pointers. Smith scored a game-high 25 points for the Mocs with six steals and five rebounds. Both teams shot the ball well, with Chattanooga sinking 54 percent (27-50) of its shots while VMI sunk 48.1 percent (25-52). The Mocs took advantage of 90.9 percent (20-22) shooting from the free-throw line, while VMI hit an uncharacteristic 53.3 percent (8-15) from the charity stripe.
 
LAST MEETING WITH FURMAN – January 1, 2022 - Sophomore guard Trey Bonham scored all of his 16 points in the second half Saturday as the VMI men's basketball team started 2022 off with a 76-67 victory over Furman University at Cameron Hall. Furman led 36-30 at intermission and had a 55-54 edge with just over eight minutes left to play. VMI went on a 20-6 run over the next seven minutes to take a 74-61 advantage and put the game away. Senior center Jake Stephens delivered a game-high 23 points to go along with eight rebounds, four assists and three blocks. Sean Conway notched the sixth double-double of his career with a full stat line of 11 points, a game-high 12 rebounds, five assists and two steals. Kamdyn Curfman scored 11 points and Honor Huff had nine points.  Jalen Slawson scored a team-high 20 points for Furman with seven rebounds, five assists and two blocks. Mike Bothwell had 14 points and eight rebounds while Joe Anderson had 11 points.   VMI shot 51 percent from the floor (29-57) and 47 percent from three-point range (14-30), while holding Furman to just 40 percent shooting overall (25-62) and 31 percent from three-point distance (12-39). It was the Keydets' first victory of the season after trailing at halftime.
 
A WIN OVER FURMAN WOULD -  
--- Move VMI to 5-4 in conference play
--- Be VMI's fourth straight win over Furman
--- Give VMI five road wins in 2021-22
 
VMI vs. Furman
This will be the 104th meeting between the teams that first met in 1939. Furman leads the series, 66-37, and had taken ten straight games in the rivalry before VMI claimed the last three meetings including a 73-74 win on January 20, 2021 in Lexington and 91-90 in the SoCon quarterfinals on March 6, 2021. The Keydets defeated Furman this season on January 1, 76-67, in Lexington.
 
STEPHENS TAKES POTW HAT TRICK – Senior center Jake Stephens was named Southern Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Week presented by GEICO for the third time this year after posting career highs in points and rebounds and averaging 27 points, 14 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.5 blocks in a pair of league contests. Stephens opened his week with a career-high 34 points in a 97-91 setback at Mercer on Thursday, going 13-for-20 from the floor (.650). The 6-11 center was 6-for-7 (.857) from 3-point range on the day and hit both of his free-throw attempts. Stephens added seven rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot in 37 minutes of action. The Bunker Hill, West Virginia, native had another career effort at archrival The Citadel Jan. 15, scoring 20 points and pulling down a career-best 21 rebounds, the most by a SoCon player this season and tied for seventh on the NCAA Division I game-high list this season. Stephens, who played all but two minutes, added five assists and four blocked shots in VMI's 90-85 road win. For the week, Stephens shot 55.9 percent from the floor (19-for-34), 70 percent from 3-point range (7-for-10) and 75 percent from the free-throw line (9-for-12).
 
A DECEMBER TO REMEMBER AND HOLIDAY CHEER – Senior center Jake Stephens rang in the New Year with a shower of accolades after being named the Lou Henson College Insider National Player of the Week and both SoCon GEICO Player of the Week and December Player of the month. In December, Stephens averaged 21.6 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.8 blocked shots per game and shot 57.6 percent from the floor in helping VMI to a 4-1 record during the month. As the calendar turned to 2022, Stephens posted 29 points and 15 rebounds against ETSU January 5, his fifth double-double of the season and 11th for his career. Stephens also scored 28 points against Gardner-Webb December 11 to become the 43rd player in VMI history to reach that mark. Stephens equaled his then career bests in rebounds (16) and blocked shots (6) against the Gardner-Webb. Stephens currently leads the team in scoring average with 18.8 PPG (2nd best in SoCon) and has ten 20+ point games this year including 7 of the last 8 contests. He also paces the squad in rebounding (8.9-1st in SoCon) and free throw percentage (81.8%-6th in SoCon). His 2.2 blocks per game rank second in the SoCon.
 
CURFMAN CLOSES IN ON 1,000 POINTS –Junior guard Kamdyn Curfman has 993 career points heading into Wednesday night's game with Furman. He  is tied for first in the SoCon in 3FG per game (3.8) and his 76 makes from beyond the arc top the league. Curfman has scored in double figures in all 20 games this season with six 20+ games including a career-high 27 points at Marist November 20. Curfman matched his career-high in 3-pointers in a game when he nailed six 3's vs. Samford Thursday after doing so at Wake Forest December and Central Arkansas November 25. Curfman and has hit 5+ 3FG in eight games this season. 
 
HUFF WITH THREE STRAIGHT CAREER HIGHS – Freshman guard Honor Huff has set career scoring highs in each of the last the games. The Brooklyn, NY native had 15 points at The Citadel Jan. 15, 21 points vs. Samford Jan. 20, and 23 points against Chattanooga last Saturday. 
 
MORE LONG-RANGE ACCURACY – Through games of January 24, VMI leads the nation in three-pointers per game averaging 12.7 per contest and have hit 10+ threes in 17 games this season. The SoCon has three of the top five teams in the nation in three-pointers made per game with Furman 2nd(12.2), and The Citadel 5th (10.9). VMI in 2020-21 ranked second in the nation in 3-pointers made per game for the second straight year and averaged 10.8 per game ranking only behind Oral Roberts with 11.1 per contest. The Keydets drained 10 or more threes in 17 games last season. In 2019-20, VMI also ranked second in Division I in three-pointers made averaging 10.9 per game, second only to North Florida. VMI converted on 359 threes that season - the third most on the school all-time list.
 
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Players Mentioned

Sean Conway

#30 Sean Conway

G
6' 5"
Sophomore
Kamdyn Curfman

#10 Kamdyn Curfman

G
6' 1"
Sophomore
Jake Stephens

#34 Jake Stephens

C
6' 10"
Junior
Trey Bonham

#2 Trey Bonham

G
6' 0"
Freshman
Honor Huff

#3 Honor Huff

G
5' 10"
Freshman

Players Mentioned

Sean Conway

#30 Sean Conway

6' 5"
Sophomore
G
Kamdyn Curfman

#10 Kamdyn Curfman

6' 1"
Sophomore
G
Jake Stephens

#34 Jake Stephens

6' 10"
Junior
C
Trey Bonham

#2 Trey Bonham

6' 0"
Freshman
G
Honor Huff

#3 Honor Huff

5' 10"
Freshman
G