Basketball releases final schedule

The Davidson men's basketball office has released the 2007 schedule and it looks to be as good as advertised.

The Wildcats will open the season with D-III Emory, the school where former Davidson players Jason Zimmerman and Matt McKillop are now coaching. There is also an intriguing connection with two players on Emory's team: John and Ryan Kresse. The Kresse twins are sons of former College of Charleston coach John Kresse. Kresse was a great rival and friend of McKillop's when he coached the Cougars as they made the leap into the Southern Conference.

Another intriguing scheduling note is the relative lack of games in the middle to end of Christmas break. Davidson will only play two December games after the completion of the semester which could prove to be beneficial. The Wildcats have historically struggled in mid-winter contests where the players are kept at an empty school and often play in front of sparse crowds.

Davidson seems to have drawn a tough straw for the month of February. In the month known as the doldrums of college basketball, the Wildcats will play all of last year's conference bye teams, face off against the reigning SoCon Player of the Year (Kyle Hines, UNCG) twice and travel somewhere to play a top mid-major team in the ESPN BracketBusters game.

On a final scheduling note, the SoCon championship game will be played on a Monday night instead the Saturday and Sunday times of the last few years.

Whelliston helps us think big

It is no secret around Davidson men's basketball circles that next year could be a season for the ages. Not only will the Wildcats feature an exciting lineup that returns every scholarship player from a team last year that ranked nationally in scoring, they will get the chance to play against the nation's most storied basketball programs: UCLA, UNC, Duke and NC State.

For Davidson, though, this tough schedule does not appear out of the blue as a result of last year's "miraculous season." In fact, the Wildcats have been leading the rest of the Southern Conference in the last decade in terms of OOC strength of schedule.

As Kyle Whelliston points out in his most recent feature on ESPN.com, Davidson has a real opportunity this year to not only challenge teams from the ACC, they have the opportunity to beat them and prove that last season was no fluke.

"Our players realize that what was accomplished last year is in the past," said Coach McKillop in the article. "They have responded to that by showing me a work ethic that has been extraordinary."

Throughout the article's entirety, Whelliston seems to make it very clear that he believes that Davidson's talent, schedule and pre-season buzz could have them heading for realities beyond the imagination of the "leafy" little NC town. The writer goes so far as to invoke the L-word, something that Bob McKillop has earnestly avoided in his tenure at Davidson.

"What Lefty and his players accomplished was one of the truly great stories in college basketball history," McKillop says. "There were 11,600 people every home game at the Charlotte Arena, there were NBA draft picks with Dick Snyder and Fred Hetzel. There are a significant, very significant number of steps to take before we can even be mentioned in the same breath as the glory days."

But at the risk of calling out Coach McKillop and taking Lefty off of a pedestal, the last half-decade of Davidson basketball has begun to recreate the glory years in some ways, and even surpass it in others.

With last year's NCAA tournament appearance, the Wildcats made it to the postseason for the third time in as many years. That had not happened since 1970 in Davidson history and has always been a rarity for the Southern Conference. Bob McKillop has graduated all of his players and most of the recent classes, including last year's walk-on Lamar Hull, have played professional basketball post-Davidson. It is certainly too early to start counting our eggs with Stephen Curry, but he did help Davidson set two new attendance records last season and propelled the U.S. U-19 team to the World Championship finals. And did I mention that Bob McKillop is the winningest coach in Davidson and Southern Conference history?

It is true that Driesell accomplished something very special in his day. But McKillop is accomplishing something almost equally special in this current state of college basketball where many coaches argue that the NCAA Tournament should include up to 128 teams. Driesell made Davidson into a brand back when that word had more to do with livestock and hot metal objects.

McKillop has never publicly sought out such things for Davidson as Driesell once did, but he definitely knows the type of image he is creating with the 2007-2008 schedule. If he isn't careful, he will have to deal with many more Driesell comparisons in the near future. But maybe that isn't such a bad thing after all.

Women's Basketball schedule released

The 2007-2008 Davidson women's basketball schedule has been released on the team website. With non-conference games against the likes of Georgia, Virginia and Georgia Tech, Annette Watts' squad will hope to relive last year's success when the Wildcats made their first postseason appearance in school history.

Davidson will also participate in the Carolina First Classic in Asheville, NC in November and the St. Joe's Classic in December. In addition to a competitive non-conference schedule the Wildcats will have a full conference slate including games against perennial powers Western Carolina and Chattanooga. The conference scheduling committee didn't do the Wildcats any favors by scheduling both sets of games against the Mocs and Catamounts back-to-back.

Although the Wildcats will miss the contributions of graduated seniors Tia Washington, Jessica Mitchell and Brynn Kelly, they are very excited about a good freshman class that is coming in to add to an already talented young core of players. Katie Hamilton will be returning for her redshirt senior year after missing her junior season with an ACL tear. The Wildcats will be looking for Danielle Hemerka and Julia Paquette to control the interior while Kelly Gassie and Alex Thompson will take turns bringing the ball up the court.