Friday, March 02, 2007

Davidson 92 Furman 68

Final
What a resounding victory for Davidson. I will sleep well tonight. Check back tonight for the full writeup on the game. I hope that no one will be following this one tomorrow, you all better be here in Charleston!
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2:13
And it's Civi/Nelms time!
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2:35
Webb and Bostain have finally found their shots but it is too little too late. This one's over, especially with Davidson's foul shooting. Jrich now has 20, while Curry has 28.
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4:08
Furman is attempting the press as they try to pull close here at the end. Davidson has beaten it pretty handily. That could be good practice for tomorrow night.

All of the corridors are filled with fans waiting to get into the lower sections for the next game. This place is pretty electric with anticipation right now.
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5:25
Wow, Valentine really is going to set a record for most foul calls by a single ref. I'm a bit amazed.
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And Valentine just T-ed up Diagne and he is gone. Davidson needs to be careful right now. Furman is a bit frustrated. For his part, Valentine really does like to talk to the players.

And then Valentine Ts up Lovedale for hanging on the rim. Too much going on at one time.
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6:20
Valentine is pretty funny right now. A couple of really bizarre calls have the Furman fans going apey.
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7:55
I must say that I didn't think that Davidson would get out to this margin. Furman seemed like a team that was ready to break out in a big way. They had a lot of good pieces in place, and yet that first half did them in. They had Stephen Curry on the bench for 11 minutes, and had Rossiter and Barr playing significant minutes, but they could not take advantage.

Davidson didn't wait long to pull away. Curry has 21 points right now and Jason Richards has 14. Many people still doubt the ability of this team to play with the real athletic and physical clubs. I think that you only have to look at this half to realize that Davidson is a great team. But they are going to need to play two halves to win tomorrow.
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9:15
Stephen Curry now has 19 after he hits his fifth three-pointer. Getting towards a thirty point game. This is a lot of fun on a Friday night.
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10:31
Sander just picked up his fourth foul, while Diagne is still in the game with 3. This is Furman's chance to attack inside. Oh wait, there's Andrew, nevermind. Lovedale is definitely the most improved player on this team. What a player.
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11:50
Boris gets into the three-point act and Jrich now has 14 points. Everyone in this league thinks Jason is slower than he actually is. He can fly out in front of people and convert those layups. I don't know how coaching staffs don't scout that.
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14:45
Opacic just picked up his third foul after Bostain hit his first three of the game. He will need to hit a lot more of those.

The Coliseum feels really filled right now with some early birds from the ASU-CofC crowd coming on in.

And the student section gets up a great new cheer. "We want Brendan!" as they point toward Brendan McKillop sitting in the front row. Coach's youngest son already has interest from schools like VT.
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15:10
This is a lot of fun right now. I better recant from that last post. This game isn't over by any stretch (yeah it is).
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15:17
CURRY AGAIN!!!! AND THE HOUSE COMES DOWN!

This lead is insurmountable with 15 minutes left in the game. Furman's confidence is shot and Davidson's Curry is out to make up for his slow first half. He already has 14 points in this game.
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Furman is picking up some stupid fouls and they don't have the lineup that they want right now, as Punch goes to the bench.

CURRY DOES IT!!!! That's the record.
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16:16
Another steal and a Curry three! One more for the record. There's a fan with a sign counting down the threes.
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16:56
Curry made a big defensive play, and Davidson is back on offense. MPG finishes strong AND 1! Davidson is about ready to pull away.
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19:00
Max gets an offensive rebound and J-rich starts the scoring in the second half. Davidson outrebound Furple 26-15 in the first half.
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Halftime
Incredibly ugly first half, I must say. Davidson shot 11-29 while Furman shot 5-22 from the field. The Paladins' last field goal came with over 11 minutes to play in the first half. The Paladins shot 3-8 from the foul line and were led by Diagne's 5 points.

Davidson's leading scorer was Thomas Sander with 6 points. Stephen Curry only played nine minutes while being hampered with two personal fouls. Furman has five players with at least 2 fouls, including Diagne with three, Opacic with two, Punch with two and Stanley Jones with two. Eric Webb and Robby Bostain have two points apiece.

Although Davidson leads by 15, everyone here has a sneaking feeling that this second half will open up with some fire. Curry should be back in the lineup, and you can't keep Furman's outside shooters cold forever. This one might turn into a race for the finish.
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1:04
I can't wait to see some of these Furman shooting lines from the first half. I'm a little embarrassed that Davidson only leads by 14.
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1:28
Just for the record, Davidson might be going over the back just a little bit. Just a bit.

Furman can't hit free throws, though. Oops, they finally scored. Wow, 15 points.
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2:00
Furman can't hit the broad side of a barn. Some offensive rebounds lead to a Barr three. I love seeing these freshmen play so well in such a big time game.
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3:16
The Wildcats have three freshmen in the lineup and none of them is Stephen Curry.

Jason Richards hits a layup on the break. A 12 point lead is a lot right now.
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3:57
Interesting stat of the first half: Furman fouls 11 Furman points 14.

And the band unleashes Sweet Caroline. Davidson's fans have it this time. BUH-BUH-BUH. Too bad no one is shooting free throws after this timeout.
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4:24
Cheap foul on Rossiter. This one is going to become a free-throw shooting fest.

Curry is still on the bench with a white towel on his head.
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5:10
Richards makes a nice drive bank and foul. Davidson is hitting singles and playing physical which is definitely our gameplan. Unfortunately, Valentine has heard from the Furman fans and is starting to make some picky calls against the Wildcats. Both teams are in the bonus.

Valentine also has some big white swooshes on his referee shoes. It looks pretty funny when he struts across the court to call a foul.
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6:10
Davidson needs to find some looks on offense right now. Barr has been in for Curry for a while now. Furman is really getting flustered by Davidson's physical defense.
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7:16
Thomas just picked up his second foul and Andrew is back in. Webb and Bostain have combined for a grand total of 2 points so far. They never do well against us.
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7:56
Bryant Barr hits a nice fadeaway. Furman definitely looks a little scared to shoot right now. They have gotten some open looks on the perimeter and have made the next pass. If Davidson can put a few more baskets together, they might be able to break the Paladins' will here late in the first. If the Furman players are as distracted with the refs' calls as these fans are, they are really going to be in trouble.
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8:36
Opacic is going to have to make up for Diagne right now. Davidson needs to get Thomas the ball on the block.
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9:40
Diagne just picked up his third foul. HUGE! Jason Richards is pumped up, while the guys behind me are cursing. "It's a McKillop conspiracy!"
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10:02
Davidson is getting a lot of offensive rebounds right now thanks to Boris and Andrew. I wish I had a statcounter in front of me. All of the important people are hogging it.

Things are getting interesting now. Boris got tangled up with Diagne and we have some technicals. Personal foul on Diagne, technical on Diagne and Meno. That's two for Diagne. Six team fouls for Furman.
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10:40
It looked like Davidson was in a zone in that last possession on defense. The collapse didn't work as Furman was able to hit a three-pointer.
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11:44
We are definitely getting our open looks today. Archambault just got a jumper on the baseline. I would like to see a few more traps on defense. It seems like we are sitting back on our heels a little bit in the halfcourt D. Furman doesn't need to have layup opportunities to get the ball in the basket. We can't allow them the same looking shots they are giving us.
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12:30
Curry hits three number 1 one of the game. Two more for the record.
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13:40
Thomas Sander hits a big three. This tournament is definitely about the juniors. They are going to have create Curry's opportunities by playing well themselves.
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14:55
Moussa Diagne hits his first three-pointer of the game and Furman takes their first lead. Curry definitely looks like the "freshman" from yesterday's game.

Right before the media timeout, Valentine held his conference with Thomas about playing easy. Sander gets one of those per half.
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16:00
When Curry lofted his first three, the entire Davidson crowd inhaled. He missed but Max recovered the rebound for a layup. Furman finally gets on the board with a jumper. They are really slow.
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17:41
We have the venerable Teddy Valentine with us today. He just called an over-the-back call on Diagne then took it back and called it out of bounds. Wow.
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18:40
Thomas Sander starts the scoring, and you can already tell how different this game is than yesterday. Furman does not have UTC's speed off the dribble nor their leaping ability.

Unfortunately the "you ain't ready Curry" guy is still sitting behind me. Crap.
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We are seconds from tipoff here at the NCC. The crowd is excited, the players are loose. This has a feel of an NCAA tournament game. It's pretty amazing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will - if you want stats, try the live stats online: http://www.soconsports.com/liveStats/liveStats.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=4000&KEY=&DB_OEM_ID=4000&DB_LANG=&IN_SUBSCRIBER_CONTENT=

Anonymous said...

What a game thus far. The crowd sounds great. I'm there in spirit.
MFlake