Citadel can't halt losing skid

After 30 minutes of Saturday night's basketball game at McAlister Field House, Furman coach Jeff Jackson had seen enough of Mike Groselle.

And no wonder. The Citadel's junior center hit 10 of his first 11 shots, his 10th basket cutting Furman's lead to five points with 10:50 left in the game.

Jackson ordered up a 2-3 zone defense that limited Groselle to one shot and no points the rest of the way, and the Paladins pulled away for a 67-58 win before 1,602 fans.

Groselle finished with 24 points and 11 rebounds, his 10th double-double of the season and 19th of his career. But coach Chuck Driesell could find little help for Groselle, with no other player in double figures and the rest of the team shooting 29.4 percent, including 3 of 15 from 3-point range.

"The zone bothered us, and I'm surprised about that," said Driesell, whose team has lost six straight to fall to 4-17 overall and 1-9 in the Southern Conference. "We worked on it, and we knew they played it some. We didn't knock down shots. The zone keeps the ball out of the big man's hands, but if you knock down a couple of 3-pointers, they can't stay in it long."

The Citadel sliced a 9-point lead to one at 57-56 on De- Vontae Wright's jumper with 5:09 left, but couldn't cash in on three chances to take the lead. Freshman guard Lawrence Miller walked and missed a 3-pointer, and Wright missed another jumper against the zone before Furman scored six straight points, including a crucial 3-point play by Bobby Austin.

"Groselle was really hurting us, and we really couldn't match up with him one-on-one," said Jackson, whose team has won three of its last five. "We went zone and that kind of minimized him a little bit, and we got some stops."

Colin Reddick came off the bench for a season-high 12 points for Furman (11-10, 5-5), which beat the Bulldogs by 32 on Jan. 5. The Paladins took 10 more shots and made six more field goals than The Citadel, due mainly to 18 Bulldog turnovers.

"We had not been turning it over as much as we have been lately," said Driesell, who got eight turnovers from freshman guards Marshall Harris and Miller.

"I thought we had gotten through that. We got to take a closer look at that and see why we are turning it over."

--The Citadel honored the No. 3 jersey of former player Col. Jake Burrows, who is 93 and a member of the class of 1940 ... Jamie Jenkins (class of 1998) scored 30 points to lead the alumni over a cadet team in the annual alumni game.