The Davidson Show #5

Part I



Part II

Thoughts and quotes from Davidson vs. Wofford (82-49)

Davidson rolled over the eighth-seeded Wofford Terriers in convincing fashion on Saturday afternoon. The win was uncharted territory for a Davidson team that has historically struggled in the first halves of tournament quarterfinal games against teams that already have a game under their belt.

The Wildcats were led by sophomores Stephen Curry and Bryant Barr who combined to shoot 10-18 beyond the three-point arc. The roommates accounted for 36 of Davidson's 82 points.

Andrew Lovedale and Boris Meno were stout in the interior as they held yesterday's star Noah Dahlman to 3-6 shooting, while corralling 18 boards between them. Davidson outrebounded Wofford 50-36.

The Wildcats never let Wofford see one ounce of daylight from the opening tip to Nelms' final basket.

"I'm thrilled with our consistency," Coach McKillop said. "I'm particularly impressed with how we played 40 minutes from top to bottom on the roster."

Despite having all of the pressure of a Top 25 ranking and 20-0 mark in conference, the Wildcats were extremely loose and having plenty of fun on the court.

"Our coaches kept us ready to play all week at practice," Stephen Curry said. "We've been taking it one step at a time all year. This is no different."

From Nelms big buckets to rebounds from Rossiter to jumpers from Archambault to threes from Barr and Curry to drives from Richards and defensive stops by Lovedale and Gosselin, the Wildcat machine was well-oiled at every turn and never let up or got bored with their success.

"We stuck with our Davidson system," said Jason Richards. "We played strong, our bench played well, and we never left the system. And our fans were phenomenal. We owe so much to them. We look forward to getting even more of them down here tomorrow."

Davidson featured the second-largest fan showing so far this tournament and certainly took the cake for decibel level and intensity.

Davidson will tip off tomorrow evening against the winner of Appalachian State and UNC-Greensboro.

Wildcats break out in 2nd half to down The Citadel, 95-74

"If we don't become consistent, we will just be a shooting star, not a shining star. As a mid-major there is the chance to be a flash in the pan. We want to be like the programs who have done it consistently."

Bob McKillop's program took another step towards becoming a consistent mid-major power after blowing open the second half against The Citadel in the second SoCon game of the year. The Wildcats won 95-74 and improved to 2-0 in the Southern Conference.

Davidson was tied with The Citadel at 39 at halftime, but an offensive explosion led by Jason Richards' 15 points pushed the Wildcats ahead for good. Richards finished with 21 total points and 9 assists. He hit six three-pointers on the game.

The Wildcats played without Stephen Curry for most of the first half. He was hit in the mouth and needed seven stitches. He came back out wearing a #25 jersey and scored 13 second-half points to go along with six assists. Curry finished with 20 points for the seventh time this season.

The story of this one might have been the play of Bryant Barr. Barr finished with 23 points on six three-pointers. Last year, he hit a career-high seven three-pointers at The Citadel and at one point was shooting 13-16 against them for his career.

Davidson's second half run was sparked by aggressive defense and transition scoring.

"We told ourselves that we needed to make defensive stops. We came out aggressively and it worked out well for us with some transition points," said Jason Richards.

Davidson blocked a total of seven shots on the game and their defense forced 18 turnovers on 11 steals. Andrew Lovedale tallied four steals on his own.

"When you don't get stops, you are digging yourself out of a hole. Our defensive stops were key in getting creating scoring opportunities," McKillop said.

Richards' 21 points was his second highest output of the season. His 23 points against Western Michigan in November was a career high. Richards missed his first two shots of the game, but then went on a tear, hitting seven straight.

"Jason was shooting the ball well in practice and I expected that he could have a big game tonight. He's the backbone of this team," McKillop said.

Fans who left the game will be surprised to see the final score when they get home. The scoreboard reported that Jason Richards scored 22 points on seven threes. However, the scoreboard and statistics operators accidently recorded a three-pointer when Richards hit a layup. Davidson's final margin of victory was only 21 and not the scoreboard's 22.

Davidson will next face N.C. State on Dec. 21 in Raleigh.

Observations from Boone

-My party had a pre-game meal in a nice Greek restaurant right across the street from the arena. The food was really good and we enjoyed eavesdropping on several App Fans conversations about Mountaineer sports. I was dismayed that the restaurant was totally decked out in football stuff without any reference to a winter sport. Then we found a basketball poster in the corner...for the women. No wonder this basketball team has had a hard time becoming a winning program.

-I admit that I was really looking forward to seeing the Holmes Center and experiencing one of the best SoCon basketball environments outside of Charleston or Davidson. But I was pretty disappointed in the Apps for several reasons. First off, they turned off the lights for their pre-game intros which was cool...except for the fact that they turned them off before our intro, which we did in pitch blackness. Then the announcer pronounced Steee-ven Curry which got all of the Davidson fans really riled up. After Steph outscored ASU throughout most of the first half, the announcer started saying Stef-ahhn. What is this, Family Matters? At this point, there is no excuse for any school in the SoCon to pronounce his name wrong. I guess I just didn't believe that the ASU athletic department would stoop so low as to try to rattle him by intentionally mispronouncing his name. That wasn't so classy.

-Appalachian State seems to be having some identity issues when it comes to their success as an athletic program. One poster in a local Subway celebrated the Mountaineers' 2005-2006 D-I Football National Championship. Hey now, I think an A or two might be needed for that one. Also, this year's basketball team media guide has a picture of a 2006-2007 Regular Season Champions ring. First off, who gets rings for winning the regular season and then putting an NIT logo. And second of all, ASU DIDN'T WIN THE REGULAR SEASON! They won the SoCon's North Division and lost as a 2 seed in the conference tournament semis before getting blasted in the play-in round of the NIT. I guess people will buy rings for anything these days.

-This rivalry is probably one of the cleanest amongst SoCon foes. I know that Georgia Southern-CofC has gotten heated over the years and so has Georgia Southern-ASU in football. Every year there are some pretty frustrated CofC fans and overzealous Davidson fans who don't always get along. But I felt like everything was pretty calm in the Holmes Center tonight. The App students and administration did their part to try to rattle Steph, and the Wildcats were very intentional in their silencing of the crowd. It could have gotten uglier than it did.

-It seems like opponents are going to be getting open looks from the corners for the rest of the season. Davidson doubled down on the post and trapped near the perimeter a few times. App. State was very effective in their rotation early on, and they kept the score close by hitting some wide open three-pointers. Thankfully, they cooled off after a while. I guess the defense makes sense most of the time because ASU had untold numbers of missed layups, charges and travels while being doubled in the paint, and several of their players could not hit wide open threes if their life depended on it. But that is something we are giving up right now and it looks like it will continue.

-Davidson hit 12 three-pointers tonight, nine of them coming from Curry (Curry finished with a career-high 38, setting a new Holmes Center record). Some people might worry that we are relying on him too much, but there were a few moments when either Steph wasn't in the game or he was tired and the rest of the offense just sensed that they needed to step up. The Bryant Barr three-pointer to break ASU's late run came as a result of too much defensive attention being spent on Steph. It was a perfect example of how such a great player made his teammates better.

-I was a bit worried about the lack of entry passes that we put into the paint in the first half. Thomas "The General" Sander converted on several nice back-to-the-basket opportunities later on, but our frontcourt struggled during much of the early going. All of the bigs, Sander especially, seemed very tentative about taking their shot. They almost just expected Jeremy Clayton to come swat their shot on every attempt. There were several times where they had open layups or dunks, but their hesitation allowed the defense to recover. One stat that really displayed this tentativeness was FT shooting. Davidson had absolutely none until the final minutes of the game.

-Will Archambault seems to be in the slump of a lifetime. This thing is beginning to get to those proportions where in baseball, players would completely change their pregame rituals, sleep on the other side of the bed or switch the order in which they eat their pregame meal. Coach McKillop didn't force the issue tonight as he allowed Bryant Barr to come in and play the 3 position alongside J-Rich and Stephen. Jason also had a tough game. He missed several open threes and his patented drives seemed to have been a tad off. He was visibly frustrated with his lack of offensive output.

-The biggest part of this game was the fire with which Davidson played. ASU tried to slow the game down and deflate Davidson's emotion by running a 2-3 zone defense, but it ultimately didn't shut us down completely. From the first tip to the final whistle MPG, The Big Cat, Boris and, of course Steph, created loose balls, crashed the boards and answered every run made by the Mountaineers. They pulled out a victory on the road against a very formidable SoCon opponent. That is no small accomplishment for November.

Rossiter's double-double leads Davidson to 2-2

Photo by Tim Cowie

Coming into today's game against North Carolina Central, the 25th-ranked Davidson Wildcats seemed to have more questions than answers about where this 100th season was going. The Wildcats had fallen to unranked Western Michigan on Wednesday night and started the season 1-2.

On the message boards and around the Thanksgiving turkeys Wildcat fans were wondering where the Davidson post game had gone...where was the production of Lovedale/Barr/Archambault?...where was the team's rhythm?...how was Davidson supposed to beat Duke/UCLA/NCSU and earn an at-large bid if they couldn't even lead Western Michigan for more than one minute?

Against NCCU, the Wildcats seemed to take a step forward in answering those questions and becoming a better team overall. The team's bench scored 51 of Davidson's 98 points. The Wildcats doubled the Eagles' offensive rebounding numbers (18:9) and they scored 24 points off of turnovers. Davidson finished with a 98-50 victory in front of 3,412 at Belk Arena.

Before Saturday's game, Coach McKillop told John Kilgo that he led such a "passionate" practice on Thursday morning that he was worried that none of the players would show up at his house for Thanksgiving dinner.

Davidson's first half attack was headed by Thomas Sander who scored seven points early. He finished with 13 points and two steals in just 21 minutes of play. Stephen Curry had a 2-minute spurt where he scored two point baskets on three straight possessions. Curry finished with a team-high 16 points on 6-14 shooting. Jason Richards also played well, tallying four steals and 10 assists against zero turnovers.

The biggest plus from the game, however, was the play of Steve Rossiter, Bryant Barr and Will Archambault. Rossiter, who has been one of the unsung heroes of this program for the last two years, had a very impressive double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds (including 4 offensive). Rossiter contributed huge minutes in Davidson's four-point loss to #1 UNC on the 14th. He is averaging 6.5 points a game and is shooting a team-high 75% from the field.

Bryant Barr also broke out with four three-pointers on 4-7 shooting. While he needs to attempt more two-pointers (21 of his 26 season attempts have come from three land), his ability to hit the outside shot will be crucial in stretching the defense when Curry is taking a breather.

Even the much maligned Will Archambault ended up with a nice stat-line. He started the game cold but finished with 10 points. Archambault had only hit two threes in the past three games and Coach McKillop had spent a lot of practice time to work on Archambault's balance. Even with today's game going the route of the blowout, McKillop stuck with Archambault and helped him get some confidence, as he hit several nice shots and ended up with some big rebounds late in the contest.

The Wildcats used a matchup zone at several moments during the contest. This was an interesting decision after McKillop claimed that his use of the 1-3-1 in two possessions was one of the biggest keys to the Wildcats' loss to UNC. The Wildcats lost several Eagles who found open space after Davidson came with the trap, but Davidson also came up with 15 steals and forced 27 NCCU turnovers. The Wildcats will need to continue their aggressiveness against some very quick opponents in the next week. However, they need to react and recover like they did against UNC instead of the way that they did against WMU.

The Wildcats' next game will be against Appalachian State on Monday night in Boone. The Mountaineers started the season slow with an opening loss at UNC-Charlotte, but they have since recovered to hold a 3-2 record. In their latest win, they knocked off Campbell 71-64. Game time is slated for 7 p.m. The game will be televised on MASN.

Player Profiles: #24 Bryant Barr

Bryant Barr, the sharp-shooter named Mr. Maine, has a silky smooth shot that tickles the twine whenever he launches it. Or so the alliterative writer would presume.

Bryant Barr was voted as the best high school player in the state of Maine during his senior year. After one season at Davidson, most Wildcat fans know why.

Although Barr's season started inauspiciously with a ton of bench time and a badly missed three-pointer here or there, the freshman came to grow into the college game and became a crucial contributor by the end of the season.

Barr hit several shots in Davidson's runaway win at Western Carolina in February, including a two-pointer (Barr only attempted 21 two-pointers against 69 three-pointers).

One week later, Barr came off the bench to hit seven three-pointers in another road blowout win, this time against The Citadel. With his roommate, Stephen Curry, spending most of the time on the bench, most of Curry's family spent the entire game cheering for Barr: "Roommate! Roommate!"

Barr finished the season with 112 points on 36 made three-pointers, including a momentum-building trey in the first half of Davidson's NCAA tournament game.

With no departures from last year's starting five, Barr will be looking to find his time playing from the bench once again. While comparisons have been made between Barr and recent Davidson alum Matt McKillop, I believe that Barr will eventually be an even more valuable player to Davidson's arsenal. Continued summer work and effort in practice could very easily transform Barr from a one-dimensional three-point shooter into a wing threat that can both feed the paint and move the ball off the dribble.