Davidson 85 Wofford 50

Davidson Basketball travels to Spartanburg, SC today to take on the Terriers from Wofford College. Wofford is 1-3 in the conference but their three losses have come to UTC, ASU and UNCG, all teams that are fighting to win the North Division. Davidson has only won twice in the last several years at Wofford, and those wins were decided in the final minute. The Wildcats are coming off a heart-stopping two-point road win at Elon where Stephen Curry broke out of a game-long slump to score the team's last eight points in the final two and a half minutes.

I plan on live-blogging the action from Ben Johnson Arena tonight. I have been told that they have wireless, but as many of you remember, my computer's wireless card is not always completely reliable. So look for live updated thoughts throughout the game, but if they aren't popping up, I promise to at least get them recorded and post them as soon as I can get to a working internet connection.
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So I'm sitting here at press row with a few observations with our friend Kevin Cary. Stephen Curry usually takes the last shot before going into the locker room in the pregame. He did that again tonight and hit it, but then out of nowhere Brendan McKillop and Boris Meno picked up loose balls and launched three pointers after Curry. I don't what it means that McKillop airballed his shot while Meno swished it from the wing.

Lovedale is still projected tonight for the Cats. Hopefully Davidson can take advantage of their superior frontcourt and get some easy baskets on the inside to put Wofford down early. The Terriers have been really close here in Spartanburg and they should be itching for a win tonight. Davidson has only won two out of the last six games here in Ben Johnson Arena.
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17:59 D 7 W 0
Richards with a nice three after a long opening possession. I would imagine that Wofford would try to slow down the pace a la Elon. But I've been wrong about these things before. Sander and Curry put us up 7. This is good.
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15:44 D 12 W 2
We haven't seen Nichols jack it up yet. I don't know why Wofford is attacking us in the paint. This early lead is great. Wofford might not be able to have the firepower to come back later on. They certainly can't outrebound us. Lovedale has played very well securing boards and then hits a nice jumper.

The Wofford crowd is not as loud as it has been in years past. Maybe that App game took some of their spirit. Unlike Davidson, Wofford students have already been back for their trimester/Januarymester.
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13:44 D 18 W 5
Davidson is shooting 100% from the field right now. With good points from everyone. I was worried about this game but I also suspected that we could be out for blood after Elon. It looks like it. We need to get some confidence for the bigs and bench tonight. I hope that Rossiter and Will get a lot of PT. For what it's worth, the entire section of red isn't very loud either. But oh well.
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11:40 D 21 W 7
Will with Davidson's first miss of the night. The Wildcats hit their first nine shots. Wofford's defense just doesn't have the size to really bother our shooters, and we're breaking them down by bringing the ball up quickly. This is the team that people imagined back in October. He then lost an incredible pass from J-Rich out of bounds. Maybe seeing Barr soon.

In the media timeout, they are launching t-shirts with an air cannon. But the gym is so small the t-shirts are hitting the upper back wall. Also, the horn is completely out of control and going too long and too loud.
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8:47 D 28 W 8
And Kevin Cary makes the observation of the night. Curry isn't wearing any wrapping on his wrist. That will be in the Observer tomorrow. I never seem to notice these things. Davidson has cooled off a little bit here. They can't let the Terriers back in this one. Then Curry hits a long three. Thanks for bailing me out buddy. Then another one from inside the line. He's good.
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5:50 D 36 W 13
I heard some extremely loud screaming behind me only to discover that there are several rows of Davidson fans behind us as well. The Wofford marketing interns are handing out 3 point papers, but it might be too little too late. This one is about over. And this place is just enjoying watching Stephen Curry play.
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3:22 D 41 W 18
I also just learned that the shortest ref here is Dean Smith's son. He hasn't made too many notable calls, so that's about all I can say about that. KCary thinks that tonight's PA announcer sounds like Mean Gene Okerlund from the WWE. He was also very upset that I didn't know who that was. Boris Meno with a travel inside. Coach is trying to let him play out of his slump but he's still off. Everytime he grabs a rebound he bobbles it a little before Jason takes it from him. If this is anyone other than Wofford those rebounds turn into loose balls.
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1:11 D 43 W 25
All of the Davidson fans behind the bench have to stand up on every Wildcat offensive possession. The middle section is where Wofford puts the students and you can't see from around them down the court unless you stand. When the P.A. announcer told the students not to use megaphones, the older Davidson contingent expressed their approval.

After starting the game, Lovedale hasn't seen too much PT. I understand trying to get Boris some time. But remember, Andrew hasn't had all that much experience this year, starting or no, I'd rather get him the playing time in a lot of ways.
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Halftime D 45 W 25
Excellent first half from Davidson. They had a few breakdowns on defense and picked up silly fouls, but there's not too much to critique them on. Curry has 17 points in the first half with some white-hot outside shooting. His halftime high was 26 against Appalachian State. Archambault has also played well. The frontcourt has dominated as expected, outrebounding Wofford 18-7 (Meno 5, Rossiter 4). The halftime stats are little pathetic. The Wofford staff gave Aaron Bond a minute of play while they only gave Jason Richards 3 assists against 3 turnovers. That's not right.

The halftime entertainment is a bunch of Wofford tennis players playing a small ball game on the court. The guys are being mean and just hitting the ball really hard. It's not very competitive.
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17:21 D 54 W 29
And a quick start for Davidson...Curry has five points to put him at 22. Sweet pass from Lovedale to Sander underneath. Unfortunately Lovedale gets tagged for his third foul on the other end.

I noticed on DavidsonCats that people thought Meno hit a three in the first. He didn't. I wonder where Kilgo thought that he did. Curry now with 24, but he has 3 fouls now.
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15:48 D 56 W 29
Sander down on the court with an elbow to the face. This doesn't look too good. Sander is always the victim of these things, because frankly, his chippiness usually goes unnoticed and other players retaliate obviously. Lovedale might not see too much more time with 3 fouls.
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15:23 D 56 W 29
At the media timeout and Curry has 26 points. That will make up for some of those sub-par scoring performances against Elon and Western Carolina.
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11:54 D 63 W 31
If this margin stays like this, this win will be larger than the cumulative margin of victory for at least ten years down here in Ben Johnson. This is a pretty epic performance by these guys. Too bad we have Furman on Wednesday...I wanna go straight to Chattanooga.

Several Wildcat fans are yelling the margin of the score at every Davidson bucket. The Wofford students are none too pleased and have made jokes about our ability to do math. Well, yes, we can do math.
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9:38 D 71 W 36
Umm...so we hit some more threes or something...haha. What's the over/under on Davidson breaking 100?
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7:10 D 77 W 36
Curry gets his fourth foul (26 points) and J-Rich is back in. Richards looks to be getting his assist total back up by launching rainbow passes over the defense to streaking small forwards. And Wofford goes back to zone. Meno gets a nice one-handed dunk on the inside and the lead grows. Wofford has all but given up.

I get a little nudge in the elbow as Kevin Cary exclaims that Jax has opened the scoring against New England. Cary has broken the rules of dress code objectivity by wearing a Jacksonville sweatshirt to tonight's game. He claims that those rules don't apply to the Jaguars and especially not at a SoCon game in Spartanburg.
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4:21 D 81 W 40
This will be Davidson's 30th win in its last 31 conference games dating back to February 25, 2006. This has turned into a foul-fest for Davidson, but Wofford cannot shoot free throws to save their life. Nelms and McKillop into the lineup.
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Final D 85 W 50
Huge win for Davidson tonight. They came out firing and never let Wofford believe that they could win this game. That sort of mentality will need to continue if Davidson is going to run the conference this year. They won't win 20 close games, but they can win 5-10 close ones and a couple of blowouts on the road.

Lauren Biggers will be providing tonight's game story, so look for that later on.