GREENVILLE, S.C. – Coming off a pair of home setbacks, Furman's women's basketball squad hits the road to regain momentum with a pair of Southern Conference matchups beginning with a Thursday clash versus Western Carolina and Saturday contest at UNC Greensboro.
 
Thursday's contest at Western Carolina's Ramsey Center is a 6:00 p.m. tipoff, and Saturday's game at UNCG's Bodford Arena is set for a 2:00 p.m. start.  Both games will be live streamed via ESPN+, with links to the stream and live stats accessible via the women's basketball schedule page on FurmanPaladins.com.
 
Furman (14-10, 6-3 SoCon) remains in second place despite last week's losses, tied with Wofford and Mercer, two games behind first place Chattanooga.
 
Furman's 14 wins already matches last year's tally (14-16), and the six league triumphs are one better than the five (5-9) recorded last season.  Third-year head coach Pierre Curtis' squad, which doesn't a sport a senior and whose starting lineup the last several weeks has featured one junior and four sophomores, was a preseason No. 5 pick in a poll of league coaches.
 
The Paladins will be aiming for regular season sweeps of both Western Carolina and UNC Greensboro (69-56) after knocking off the Catamounts (69-38) and Spartans (69-56) in Greenville in mid-January.  In both contests Furman came back to win, erasing a 26-18 halftime shortfall against Western Carolina and 35-25 deficit at intermission versus UNCG.
 
The win over Western Carolina, which saw Furman surrender just 12 second half points, featured five Paladin double figure scoring performances, including a game high 17 from Alyssa Ervin, and extended Furman's home winning streak against WCU to 14 games, while improving the Paladins to 16-1 in their last 17 games versus the Catamounts.  The triumph over UNCG, the reigning SoCon regular season and tournament champion, halted the Spartans' 16-game winning streak against league competition spanning a full calendar year.  Headlining that outing was Chantelle Stuart, who tallied a career high 26 points, followed by Ervin's 24 points — also a career best.
 
Furman's obvious improvement this season can be traced to a number of factors, the most prominent being the high octane play of 6-foot-1 sophomore center Care Coyle, the squad's leading scorer (14.5 ppg/3^rd SoCon) who tops the league in rebounding (9.2 rpg), field goal percentage (.531), steals (52), and double-doubles (9).
 
Coyle's presence on the court has taken on added significance over the past month following injuries to fellow sophomore front court teammates, 6-foot-4 Kyraha Parnell and 6-foot-3 Channing Warren.  The thin front court has forced the Paladins to deploy a smaller lineup that is not without benefit — namely quickness, which the Paladins have put to good use, as reflected in a SoCon leading 12.2 (18^th/NCAA)  steals per game.
 
The addition of sophomore guard Alyssa Ervin from Elon has produced noteworthy results, chief among them offensive punch (13.4 ppg), a credible 3-point threat (.319), and shot creativity, evident in her game winning shots against East Tennessee State (72-70 in Johnson City) and Wofford (65-64 in Spartanburg).  A return to health this week by Ervin, who was dealing with illness and tallied only four points in the loss to ETSU, could prove significant.
 
Another transfer, junior guard Lauren Bailey (6.4 ppg) from Gardner-Webb, has proven to Furman's biggest perimeter threat (.370) this season and is 13-for-24 from beyond the arc over the last four games.
 
The Paladins have also leaned heavily on the play of sophomores Raina McGowens (8.9 ppg, 5.0 rpg) and Chantelle Stuart (7.6 ppg, 89 ast.) this season.