Kruse Thoughts From SoCon (Day 2)

SUNDAY IN CHARLESTON

*** Collective wisdom had it that Greensboro was the group that was going to knock off Davidson if that was going to happen this weekend. There was that much-discussed 20-point first-half lead in the game at Greensboro, the game in Belk was quite competitive throughout, and when those tournament pairings came out the eye couldn't help but go immediately to that likely semifinal rematch.

A thread on DavidsonCats.com indicated that at least one Wildcat fan was "terrified" going into this one.

Um.

Okay.

Here's the thing, though: For a good chunk of the first half Sunday, Greensboro had made I would say two or three contested threes that were out of the ordinary, and Steph and Bryant Barr had missed I would say two or three relatively uncontested threes that were also out of the ordinary. And the good guys were still up by 14 at the break.

In the second half, when those shots stopped going down with that frequency, and when the Wildcats just kept doing what the Wildcats do ...

Well.

Y'all saw it.

The boys are making hard look easy.

*** I'm not really a stats man – you can use numbers, I think, to say just about anything – but then again most of the time box scores don't look like … THIS.

Check it.

Points in the paint: Davidson 44, UNCG 8.

Second-chance points: Davidson 21, UNCG 3.

Points off turnovers: Davidson 13, UNCG … ZERO.

*** Kyle Hines is one of six men in the history of college basketball to have over the course of a career gotten 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 300 blocks. The other five? Davidson Robinson, Alonzo Mourning, Tim Duncan, Pervis Ellison, Derrick Coleman. It's a hilarious list, but a total testament, really, to Hines, a nice, (not) 6-foot-5, under-recruited kid from Jersey. He came into Sunday evening with 80 straight games with 10 or more points. In what turned out to be the last game of his career, that streak went to 81, but barely. Put him down for 10. And the Wildcats made those 10 a HARD 10. While we're on the topic of Hines, it looked, during Civi time, with like a minute or two left, just for a sliver of a slice of a moment, like Dan Nelms was going to finish his head of steam down the lane by (gulp) dunking on Hines. Not that it was going to happen, ever, but it could have, maybe, perhaps, which would have been, you know, kind of an unlikely and ignominious end to an otherwise stellar collegiate career.

*** Okay. Right about now I feel a real need to throw this out there: The Wildcats don't get to take that 63-point aggregate margin of victory into the championship game. Pretty sure the score is going to be 0-0 Monday night at 9 when the cameras click on.

*** Steph sure has a way of making crazy shots par for the course. Said Derek Smith on press row: "Cue the circus music." For the most part, though, his 26 points were quiet. There are many, many things to love about Steph, but this is what I love the most: He is as big as he needs to be. He ups the ante when the ante needs to be upped – the 41 in Greensboro, of course, being the most conspicuous case in point. He had, what, 19 on Saturday, and then 26 against Greensboro, and it's just a flat-out fact, no ifs, ands or buts, that full-on Steph hasn't had to show up so far this weekend. You get the feeling he's saving some of that A game for when it's more necessary to roll it out.

A quiet 26.

Davidson basketball.

I love that.

*** Know what else I love? Rossiter's minutes. He had seven boards Sunday. Seemed like more. Seems like he's getting 'em all when he's out there. Kid's going to be good. Shoot. Kid IS good.

*** That McKillop running layup near the end? Looked kind of like Jason Richards. Didn't it? DIDN'T IT?

*** Need three. That's two.

Cats muscle their way into SoCon finals, 82-52

Davidson gets yet another 30-point victory in the Southern Conference Tournament, beating UNC-Greensboro 82-52.

Davidson scored 44 (that's right, 44!) points in the paint and held Greensboro to 8. Hines finished with just 10 points on 3-9 shooting. Davidson's defense forced five turnovers on Hines. On the flip side, Hines' shot blocking did not stifle Davidson's big men as Meno finished 6-6 from the field while Lovedale and Sander both hit several field goals.

"Hines is a great player," Thomas Sander said. "We did a great job as a team getting a quick double, and he got a little frustrated early on. Any time you hold him to 10 points, you can be pretty successful."

The Wildcats recorded 21 second chance points on 13 offensive rebounds. Many of those plays came as a result of double teams on guard penetration that left the forwards open for easy putbacks.

Stephen Curry continued to drive the Davidson bus with 10-17 shooting and 26 points, despite being bodied around for the whole game. Curry continually hit the deck and yet his shot attempts kept going in. Curry passed the 1500-point mark for his career with little fanfare ("I didn't even know about it to be honest.")

The Wildcats did not need to rely on the three pointer throughout the game as they shot 28-46 from two-point land. The Wildcats' physicality shined forth defensively and offensively and the vastly underrated Wildcat frontcourt got their time in the sun on this semifinal night. Rossiter had a strong performance, coming down with seven rebounds and several big forced turnovers on Hines.

"Davidson probably played us harder tonight than they did during the regular season," said UNC-G coach Mike Dement. "Sander did a great job of denying the ball to Kyle [Hines]. They had more to do with the final score than we did. This whole league can learn a lot from how hard they play, especially in the paint."

Davidson's win is their 21st consecutive, a streak that is tops in the country. The Wildcats will look to move up in tomorrow's polls which come out before the championship game begins. Davidson was ranked 25th and 27th in the national AP and Coaches' Polls, respectively. They were also given a nine seed in the latest version of Joe Lunardi's ESPN.com Bracketology.

Davidson will enter their third straight tournament final in Charleston tomorrow night at 9 p.m. and will face seventh-seeded Elon. The Phoenix gave Davidson problems in their game at Alumni Gym earlier in the season. Although this same Greensboro team had Davidson down twenty at one point. These Wildcats are rolling and it will take a few miracles from Elon to stop them.

Davidson 82 Greensboro 52

Here at the North Charleston Coliseum and the Big Red Machine is ready to go again. The team looks loose during shootaround, especially Can Civi. He's looking to follow up yesterday's big performance with a breakout night in the SoCon semis.

I've been spending the whole day warding off bad karma. As most people remember, Davidson's last perfect season was spoiled by the Greensboro Spartans in the semifinals of the 2005 Southern Conference Tournament. Several members of that team, including Matt McKillop, Eric Blancett, Logan Kosmalski and, of course, J/T/Bo are in the house tonight. When asked about the pressure in yesterday's press conference, Coach McKillop did not shy away from that memory, but rather invoked that game as the reason that Davidson would be fully prepared for today's matchup.

Davidson's crowd doesn't seem to be substantially bigger today than yesterday, but a few more Wildcat fans might trickle in at tipoff.
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18:30 D 3 G 0
Steph gives Boris his hug and we are ready to go here in Charleston. Greensboro has unveiled a new yellow look. App State tried those for the Niagara and Davidson games and we all saw how well that worked for them.

Wildcats slip the screen and Lovedale gets the basket and the foul. Great strength from Andrew to fight through the hack and hit the layup. Wildcats playing great perimeter defense and Hines hasn't seen the ball yet.
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16:22 D 10 G 6
Hines finally gets it, gets doubled, and finds Koivisto for a three. Then he blocks Thomas in the paint. This one's going to be a fight. Max continues to make plays on every loose ball...Curry for three and Oleksiak answers. He and Koivisto want to shoot all game, and Greensboro is showing a ton more offensive efficiency than they did against ASU yesterday.
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15:58 D 13 G 7
Stephen Curry pulls a Maryland and unleashes in a split second right in front of UNCG's bench off of transition. He is 2-3 from three, while Gosselin already has three rebounds. Hines getting doubled on every touch, but he has handled it well...better than any other forward we have played this season including Hansbrough, Stepheson, Thompson, Zoubek...(maybe not Love).
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13:40 D 15 G 13
MPG playing really strong right now with several loose balls and a J in the paint. Meno and Archambault in for their normal time. Greensboro is either hitting shots or turning it over, not too many misses. Archer tries a shot at the same spot as Max's hit and shorts it off the front rim.

This game is a lot like the one in Greensboro except that Steph has hit his threes. Greensboro is playing much of the same, though, by reversing the ball and hitting open three-pointers.
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11:37 D 19 G 13
Forgot to mention that Valentine is reffing this game. Curry got murdered on a transition that he somehow made. This place was mad, but would have been worse if he missed the layup. TV Teddy is giving us the UNC-Duke leash that he gave the rivals last night...."you can hit someone as hard as you want, but I won't call it for either team." Curry now with 10 points.

Greensboro has cooled off on the shooting, now just 4-12 from the field (Hines 0-2).
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9:44 D 26 G 15
Curry is getting stretched on the sideline and the TV is eating it up. He's not hurt. Meno with his first points of the game. Meno again with a nice spin move. He is stepping it up in this building I tell ya. Hines and Curry were briefly sitting next to each other at the scorer's table...that's a photo Op waiting to happen. And Curry drains it right in Oleksiak's face. Nothing Kevin could do about that one. Stephen Curry just wanted it and took it.
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7:40 D 30 G 21
Andrew Lovedale retrieves an offensive rebound and is wide open for a layup. But he waits for the defense to get to him and then does his turnaround. I don't think he knows any other way to shoot. Then Lovedale with a huge pack on Hines. Get that out of here.

Thomas Sander on a steal, gets away with a slight travel and dunks it home.

Koivisto and Toney doing their best to keep Greensboro in this one. They are a combined 5-7 from three. With this deficit, Greensboro is going away from Hines and just chucking it up. If Davidson can keep scoring, I don't think Greensboro can play three-point shootout for forty minutes. Twenty? Well we've seen them do that. Forty? No way.
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4:35 D 34 G 23
Rossiter playing really strong D on Hines. Nothing wrong with him today. Wow! Richards in for a layup that rims out and Meno kills the rebound into the net, literally. Wildcats playing really hard and being really effective.
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3:36 D 34 G 26
Greensboro playing out-of-their-minds tough right now. This performance from them would completely bury any SoCon team, yet they are down eight to Davidson. G fans might have one or two beefs with some charging calls, but the officials are trying to let the teams be physical and not put the stars in foul trouble. Because of that, it seems like every foul is random. Davidson only has 5 team fouls and G only has four. Greensboro shooting 7-12 from three, but Hines only has 1 point.
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1:35 D 36 G 26
Hines picks up a really stupid place to pick up his second foul, reaching in on Curry in transition. Sander follows up his scoreless game yesterday by going 3-4 from the field here in the first half.
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Half D 40 G 26
Wildcats finish the half strong on a Meno putback as Richards once again draws two defenders on his drive and Meno is wide open to put back the trash.

Curry is Davidson's leading scorer with 13 points, while Rossiter is the team's leading rebounder with four boards. The Wildcats have shot only 3-10 from three, but have gone 15-24 on two-point attempts. Greensboro has shot 50% from three and 40% altogether but they have turned the ball over 11 times which effectively counts as a missed shot.

And Davidson senior Blake Poole takes the court at halftime and hits three three-pointers to win a $1200 gift certificate to Sherwin-Williams. It was an impressive accomplishment, but really, what is he going to do with all that paint?

So you gotta love SportSouth's graphics...in their Star Watch you've got Hines with his 1 point, 0/3 shooting and three rebounds...and then Curry, 13 points, 3 rebounds, 5/10 shooting. Hines better go nuts here or these will be the last twenty minutes of his college career.
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17:55 D 44 G 30
Lovedale really developing quite a repertoire of moves. His shot is unblockable, his rebounding is both strong and very high, and his on-ball defense is extended so that he can pressure the ball on a small forward 25 feet from the basket and there is more of a chance of him getting a steal than the offensive guy taking him to the hole.
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17:30 D 46 G 30
Davidson is now 18-27 on two pointers. Their ability to take mid-range jumpers and put them at the bottom of the net is what sets this team apart. People want to peg these Wildcats as three-point shooters...and at one point, they might have been right...but you would look silly trying to claim that now. Wildcats hitting singles and knocking in runs.
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12:40 D 54 G 37
The refs have both teams upset right now...thinking that things are happening that aren't getting called. It's quite comical when everyone in here feels screwed over. But Davidson continues to hit singles and score near the basket.
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12:17 D 54 G 39
Hines finally coming alive on the offensive end, and Greensboro too close to write off and yet not close enough to feel too worried about. Rossiter the only one with three fouls.
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11:28 D 57 G 41
Curry for three and he now has 1500 points in his career (18 today). Once again, Davidson leads a game despite a gross discrepancy in free throw attempts. The Wildcats have been to the line once and Greensboro 10 times.
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9:43 D 61 G 41
Greensboro fans starting to feel desperate...their complaining on the calls has gotten more feverish after every Wildcat basket. Davidson still going for twos: dribble penetration, back-door cuts, back-to-basket postups...Davidson is getting it done inside the three-point line.
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7:58 D 66 G 42
Bryant Barr throwing daggers...that one hurt for Greensboro. And Greensboro missing on the offensive end. Wildcats are shooting 59% tonight. This performance would beat a lot of Tournament teams. Especially when LOVEDALE PACKS HINES AND MPG SLAMS IT HOME! No fear here. Wildcats have done their due diligence, shown up to play, and they deserve the tournament championship now. They will have to keep it up for 48 more minutes though.
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5:57 D 67 G 46
Hines is still fighting, but Steve "Heart of a Lion" Ross-it-er is fighting harder. He knocks a loose ball away and then knocks down a Greensboro guard on a half-court pick. Wildcat fans coasting now and getting ready for some College of Charleston action here at 8:30.
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2:52 D 73 G 49
And Brendan McKillop into the lineup. Great to see Coach giving these guys so much time at such a big stage. He is so steady with the ball. Stephen Curry getting killed inside, but he still finds a way to fade away, get knocked to the floor and bank it off the glass.

Curry knocked to the deck on the next possession and he needs to come out now.
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2:15 D 77 G 49
Someone said that this might be the championship game right here with the two best teams in the conference. It certainly has that feel with the crowd intensity, Sunday night tip and chants of NCAA Tournament. One more game, guys. One more game.

Civi Time!
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1:00 D 80 G 52
Civi throws a pass across the court and Will converts a three. It looked like he was a throwing a base ball from left field into home. Nelms would have had a big dunk but Hines blocked him badly.
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Final D 82 G 52
Yet another big statement from these Wildcats. Statement from every man on that team as well. Jason Richards with a long embrace and a few words and a smile for Kyle Hines at center court. On to the press room where Scott Fowler and Pat Forde join us to ask Coach McKillop how good we really are.

Meno finds his touch, Richards battles for his life, Steph gets on TV

I had a bad feeling yesterday. As the pep band played their familiar tune and the Wildcats jogged to their locker room at halftime, I had a bad feeling. Davidson trailed UNC-Greensboro by four at halftime, and yet somehow the gap felt wider. The situation felt just like January 20th when Davidson trailed Appalachian State by 7 at halftime. I felt like the Wildcats were still one step behind. For all of the fundamentals and great coaching and hard work and incredible athleticism, I felt like we Davidson fans were overestimating this team.

Somewhere in the second half, this team decided to prove me wrong. In one eight-second sequence late in the second half, Stephen Curry hit an incredible three-point shot to extend the Davidson lead to nine points. He then raced down the court anticipating a long pass, intercepted it, and raced back up the court eyeing the three-point stripe. He hit another one. UNC-Greensboro was effectively dead.

The story of this game goes far beyond Stephen Curry, however. Jason Richards put up an equally remarkable performance as he took the beating of his lifetime taking the ball right at the heart of the Spartans frontcourt. Richards remembered the App State game and he knew that Davidson could not get comfortable in shooting three-pointers in the last seven minutes of the contest, no matter their lead. Although he had already picked up several charging fouls on the game, Richards never backed down from his attack. He only made it better. By manipulating his body around the defenders, Richards was able to draw some blocking fouls and get himself in position for easy layups.

The other remarkable story of this game involved the seemingly abrupt coming-of-age of Boris Meno. Although he has developed into an effective shot-blocker and rebounder throughout the season, Meno's offensive capabilities have been in flux all season. Against the Spartans, Meno found himself with opportunity after opportunity to score easy baskets inside. He hit his first nine shots and finished the game with 20 points. From the stands, it seemed as if Meno was finally learning the steps to effective inside manuevering, as he continually used a second step to get under his defender and create a short layup opportunity. Instead of moving away from the basket or forcing a tough hook jumper, Meno seemed comfortable in attacking the glass and making the ball bounce right in. While this might seem obvious and inane for me to be saying about a 6'8" starter, those who have seen Boris Meno know why this game seemed to be such an accomplishment.

It is hard to really believe that Davidson has escaped from its fate of being a well-coached team that just isn't athletic enough to beat everyone all the time. I have to believe, however, that this team wants to escape. This team wants to overcome a few stereotypes on the way. White guys can jump, and be quick and dunk the ball. Black guys can be smart and coachable and hard-working. Davidson can win the Southern Conference in an odd year. Welcome to February, we have 24 days and counting.

**photo by Richard Shayegan**