GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina) – A new series on Amazon Prime shows behind the scenes of Furman men’s basketball’s historic run to the NCAA Tournament, and the director and coach said they experienced the title of the “Better Together” series.

They only used one percent of the footage they captured for the five-part docuseries. Principal Richmond Weaver said it almost didn’t happen, but they’re sending a special message because it did.

“You know the ending, but you don’t know how it happened,” Weaver said. “That’s the beauty of this type of story.”

Before his Amazon series could even begin, Weaver was faced with a big question.

“Funding,” he said. “How were we going to finance this project? »

So Weaver decided to finance the project himself.

“I took out a home equity line of credit and said, ‘I believe in this project, I don’t know where it’s going.’ I know it’s not the smartest decision financially, but I believed in the project,” he said.

From there, Weaver joined a film crew on the Furman men’s basketball team. He overcame his setback just as the Paladins overcame theirs.

In 2022, Furman lost the conference championship at the buzzer. But the following year, they made history.

The Paladins not only won the conference championship, but also won their first NCAA Tournament game in nearly 50 years.

“You don’t always control your event, but you always control your response,” said Furman Men’s Basketball head coach Bob Richey. “In life, when difficult things happen, you can use them as a stepping stone or a stumbling block and many times the choice is yours. This team made the choice that this would be a springboard to propel us towards something that we could not achieve without it.

That’s the message Coach Richey wants everyone to take away from the series and his team. He even got to relive their resilience by being voted conference player of the year that season.

“On release night, Jalen Slawson was actually at my house, so Jalen and my kids watched all five episodes in the basement that night,” Richey said. “I was like ‘oh my God.’ I was sitting there and my heart was beating even though I know what’s going to happen. But reliving that was incredible.

Weaver says Richey’s reaction makes the risk worth the reward.

“It fills my heart and makes me realize we captured it,” Weaver said. “We captured history the way I wanted to capture it and create this legacy that they will have forever.”

The legacy of being “better together”.

The “Better Together” series is now available for purchase on Amazon Prime, and Weaver hopes it will attract enough attention to stream for free. Weaver said he would probably never make his money back from financing the project, but it was never about the money. It was about sharing a story that even a director like him couldn’t write.

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