Furman post-game thoughts and quotes

***Photo by Brian Westerholt***

-The main story from today's game was Will Archambault. Finishing with a career-high 28 points, Archambault paced all Davidson scorers, including Stephen Curry who finished with 26. Both players scored more than half of Furman's overall point total of 51. Archambault's performance came on the heels of a solid seven points and four offensive rebounds against Greensboro.

"Will is a mirror of what our team is," McKillop said. "He is getting better. Throughout the season, his entire game has improved...much like our entire team. We know his potential, and to see him turn that potential into production is exciting to see as a coach."

"It was just during the games that [my shot] wasn't falling," Archambault said. "I had been playing well in practice, so I tried to attack the basket more and I kept shooting. It just started falling."

-As soon as the game ended, the Wildcat team rushed up the side steps with a signed ball for Dick Sanderson, a lifelong Davidson fan with ALS. Kevin Cary wrote an article about him last year after the Wildcats presented him with the championship net after Davidson's SoCon championship.

-Andrew Lovedale had a superb game...finishing around the hole with authority and not leaving the ball on the rim where it might fall off. He finished with 14 points and five rebounds.

-Davidson's defense was absolutely spectacular. They held Furman scoreless for the first eight minutes of the first half and first 4.5 minutes of the second half. "We put pressure on the ball and cut the court in half," Curry said. "We tried to limit them to one shot so we could get back on the offensive end."

-Jason Richards had a huge game at the point. Seven rebounds and nine assists despite not hitting a field goal. "We have put an emphasis on gang rebounding. Jason Richards had a huge game with seven rebounds," McKillop said. "We want all of our guys rebounding. We want all five guys working on every play, every rebound, every in-bounds. If you don't get rewarded, someone on your team will and that will be a reward to you."

Despite playing a five-win team sandwiched between big TV games against UNC-G, Davidson came out with fire and intensity and knocked Furman to the mat from the beginning.

""I thought we were very consistent today," McKillop said. "We built on our first half and that was encouraging to me. Our seniors understand that their careers are in the twilight. They want to savor every opportunity. They look at it as a gift and they want to use this gift wisely."

Davidson quiets the Dogs

Tonight's post-game wrap-up is again presented by Davidson's own Lauren Biggers. While not writing for Will's World, Biggers likes to watch The Office and Lost, while keeping up with current events. She enjoys drinking Diet Coke.

Back by popular demand – well, my mom and (most of) the guys in the office liked my mindless commentary at least - I decided to make a second straight road trip. Will’s World is kind enough to air my thoughts again, but stay tuned for a possible Davidson blog in the near future. (I know what you are thinking: Here’s hoping.)

This time we traveled just over the border into the Palmetto State and onto the lovely campus of Wofford College. It really is lovely, and it’s certainly less hot than I remember from my Panthers training camp trip, and much quieter and all around tamer than my last visit to the home of the “Beware of Dog” sign last season. (I love that sign.)

In ’07, I drew the short(er) end of the stick with a seat next to the Davidson bench on the official scorers table. From what I remembered of my trip last year, I expected a much louder atmosphere, though that expectation may have been distorted by that row of students shouting over my shoulder the entire time, mistakenly calling Bryant Barr “J” so much that I finally turned around and clarified for them. A momentary lapse in judgment to be sure, but they did help me get connected to the wireless Internet and, well, you need friends everywhere you go.

I digress, and I just spent most of this opening writing about last year’s game, and that’s because, well this wasn’t last year’s game. Nor really, a game at all. The atmosphere wasn’t electric, the game wasn’t close, and unlike some in Davidson red, I wasn’t annoyed by the Wofford students.

The antithesis to last week’s Elon game, where nothing needed was falling for the ‘Cats, Davidson couldn’t miss out of the gates tonight, going nearly six minutes before finally missing a shot. It was the kind of game that when Wofford scored on an inbounds play to make the margin 21-7, I found myself cheering just a little. Cheering, after all, isn’t allowed on press row.

It wasn’t that Wofford was slacking off or even playing that poorly, it was just one of those games that was decided right from the Andrew Lovedale tip. At the point when Davidson finally missed a shot, Stephen (not pronounced Steven, except sometimes for fun) Curry was outscoring the Terriers 12-7 all by his lonesome.

Even the Wofford students couldn’t get up for this one, and can you blame them? At their own arena the P.A. announcer directed a security guard to take away their bullhorn, in so many words, over the loudspeaker to cheers from the Davidson contingent. Though, you can’t blame the guy, since the bullhorn was literally within an earshot. And don’t even get me started on the unnecessarily lengthy horn for timeouts. Was that guy serious? Or just as bored as the rest of us? Or afraid that Wofford wouldn’t actually come back out?

Lacking in drama from the start, expect for if the ‘Cats would get to 100 (no), the crowd pretty much kicked back for a show. For Davidson though, the memories of a close win at Elon combined with a near-miss at Wofford last season, combined for a big win on Saturday night.

“It felt really good,” said Jason Richards, demoted, also to his amusement, to my press conference this night. “Coming down here, it’s always a battle against Wofford. We came out fired up. We learned a lot from the game against Elon. We knew we needed to get out of the starting gates early, and we got out to a big lead. It was a good win for us.”

And if it was a lackluster game, as indicated by the final scored of 85-50, it certainly wasn’t for effort. Steph finished with 26 on 11-of-13 shooting with three each in rebounds and assists. Jason finished with 12 (four treys) points and was credited with six assists, though it probably should have been more. Will, who had such a big game in this arena last season, posted another good total with 15 points on 7-for-11 shooting, while Stephen (actually pronounced Steven) Rossiter was close to a double-double with eight pounds and rebounds off the bench, back after an off-night at Elon.

“Obviously that builds confidence for us,” Jason said of back-to-back SoCon road wins. “Winning on the road in the conference is huge; every game in conference is hard. Furman will be really important for us; they are gonna bring it. Anytime you go on the road in the conference, we just need to come out like we did tonight against Wofford.”

Here’s hoping for a very similar result.

Thoughts from Saturday's games against WCU

-Davidson women's basketball team is inching closer and closer to joining the elite squads of the Southern Conference. Although Western was playing without their star forward, sharpshooter Lauren Powell put forth another fantastic performance (7-12 FG). Davidson led the Catamounts throughout most of the first half and did not let WCU pull away when they went on a second half run. If Halbersleben's last second shot would have fallen, the Cats would have had five more minutes to pull out a victory and get a huge conference victory against a top team.

-Although she only played limited minutes, Katie Hamilton showed why she was such a dominant SoCon player for her first few years. She plays with great balance and patience, taking good shots when they are there and setting up her teammates perfectly. The Wildcat offense had more flow when she was in the game.

-Davidson guards Kelly Gassie and Alex Thompson were thrown off a little bit by Western's second half press. The Wildcats struggled to score throughout most of the half and a lot of that had to do with the Catamount press throwing off their offensive timing and making them race against the shot clock on every possession.

-Mercedes Robinson is easily the most consistent and talented scorer on Davidson's squad (at least until Hamilton gets back to full strength). Robinson rarely misses close shots and she has an uncanny ability to control the ball in traffic and get off an accurate shot. While I used to think that she was one of those quiet scorers who made double figures without you noticing, I now believe that she is just flat out one of the top players in this program in recent years.

-In the Belk Arena nightcap, Western Carolina laid down the plan for how to beat Davidson in conference play: don't let Davidson beat you from outside, bump the Wildcats to keep them off-rhythm, shoot a high percentage from the field. Unfortunately for Western, the referees decided to call the game close and Davidson set a new season high with 31 free throw attempts.

-Boris Meno had a really nice performance as he came off the bench for the second night in a row. Meno scored nine points and three boards, including an impressive thunder jam on a fastbreak. The forward from Paris seemed to be more intent on limiting his turnovers and converting touches into points or opportunities for his teammates. With Sander reemerging as a potent force inside (he had nine points and 10 boards tonight), Meno has the opportunity to shore up a veteran frontcourt that was exposed in non-conference play.

-For the second straight game, Max Paulhus Gosselin had a huge game full of energy and offensive production. The junior forward scored nine points including an impressive steal and slam with a foul. He had several defensive plays where his presence altered shots threw the Catamounts out of rhythm. I was really happy to see coach put MPG and Will Archambault in the game together at the two and three. As both players have regained some effectiveness with their offensive production, they become less of a confidence liability on both ends of the court.

-Stephen Curry is so good that he can suffer through the worst shooting game that he has had all season and still contribute 19 points. He and Richards combined for a problematic 10 turnovers and 3-18 shooting night from the perimeter. Yet both players got their points elsewhere integrated the rest of the team into the gameplan.

Davidson faces off against two very different Catamounts

Today will be a full day of basketball up here in Davidson, N.C. I will not be available to host a live blog or post an original story directly after either game, but I will try to get some thoughts online by Sunday.

Annette Watts' women's team will kick off the action at 2 p.m. against Western Carolina. Although the Catamounts come into this matchup with a seemingly harmless 8-5, 0-1 record, they continue to be every bit the team that fought Chattanooga to the bitter end in last year's conference title game. This year, Western Carolina has won at Clemson, at Louisville, at Oregon State and Hawaii. Their losses have come at the hands of Minnesota, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Chattanooga, and, most recently, UNC Wilmington. The Davidson men's team might know a little something about how a record doesn't really reflect the true quality of a basketball squad.

The Catamounts have been led by a high-scoring trio of upperclassmen: Monique Dawson, Brooke Johnson, and Ashley Pellom. All three players have averaged in double figures this season, while the 6-4 Johnson has averaged 6.4 rebounds and 2.0 blocks a game. Unfortunately for the Catamounts, however, Johnson was seriously injured in last week's loss to Chattanooga. Reports are that she won't be returning this season.

The Wildcats will be bolstered by the return of Katie Hamilton who saw limited minutes in her first game back against College of Charleston last week. Although she is still not at full speed, Davidson hopes that Hamilton can give them another scoring threat on the perimeter to take the defense's attention away from Alex Thompson and Honna Housley.

The most important matchup in this game will be Mercedes Robinson and Julia Paquette against forward Kendra Eaton. Davidson completely floundered against this same group of forwards last year, and they were unable to stop the easy layups in the paint. The top six scorers for the Catamounts are all upperclassmen which means that they will be highly disciplined and difficult to rattle. The Wildcats will need to shoot a high percentage from the field and limit turnovers in order to have a chance to pull out the victory. If they can take advantage of Johnson's absence and learn to play well in the matinee timeslot, the Wildcats could be rewarded with a signature conference victory.

In the nightcap, the Davidson men's team will take on a similarly clad, yet totally different Western Carolina basketball team. While the female Catamounts have enjoyed immense success over the past few years, the men have struggled mightily in the Southern Conference and look to be going down that road again after stud sophomore Nick Aldridge was asked to leave the team.

The Catamounts have very little identity as a basketball squad right now, and that showed as they dropped an embarrassing conference loss to lowly 2-11 Furman on Thursday night. Conversely, the Wildcats are coming off a commanding victory over conference leader Georgia Southern where they had three players score in double figures, and led by a score of 21-3 at one point.

Things to watch for:

-Katie Hamilton might be back, but she won't be at full speed. Watts will be walking the fine line of giving Hamilton valuable playing time versus keeping her fifth-year star healthy. In the past, this team has fallen into bad habits of letting Hamilton do all the scoring for them. If they do not integrate her back into the offense effectively and efficiently, they might not be as successful as hoped for in conference play.

-In Davidson's last home game against High Point, star forward Julia Paquette went 2-12 from the field, missing open layups left and right. She cannot afford to lose her calm in the next two home games against WCU and Chattanooga.

-Although Will Archambault did hit a three-pointer in Davidson's blowout victory over Georgia Southern, he played the game at a slower pace than normal. I wondered if the ankle injury that he sustained at N.C. State had anything to do with it. If Paulhus-Gosselin replicates his effort from Thursday and stays out of foul trouble, Archambault might be given plenty of time to think about his ankle and his intensity.

-Although Kyle Hines and his UNC-G Spartans still lurk on the horizon, the Southern Conference does not offer much in terms of overpowering frontcourts. GSU's Louis Graham was supposed to be an all-conference player, but he could not stop Thomas Sander in the ways that the ACC teams could. Andrew Lovedale almost seemed surprised that he was able to elevate and get his hands on so many tipped balls around the basket. Ultimately, the effectiveness and consistency of Davidson's frontcourt will determine just how successful this 08 campaign will be.

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.

WMU upsets 25th-ranked Wildcats

Photo by Tim Cowie

A national ranking. A stirring story in the Charlotte Magazine. The optimism could not have been as ripe as it was at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.

But everything quickly came crashing back down to earth as the Davidson Wildcats fell to Western Michigan, 83-76. Davidson trailed from the very beginning as the Broncos shot a blazing 12-22 from the three-point line. Derrick Drews hit five of those threes to finish with a team-high 18 points.

Stephen Curry proved to be a non-factor for many key moments of the game as he was hampered by foul trouble. Davidson was whistled for 24 total fouls, but the most important one came in the final minutes. With the Wildcats mounting a late comeback on the shoulders of Curry and Richards, Stephen was whistled for a foul away from the ball at the top of the key. It was the end of a series of dubious fouls on Curry, the first of which came on a charge after Curry made a steal in the first half. Curry finished the game with 25 points on 9-16 shooting (5-11 from three land).

Throughout the game, the refs continually disrupted play with ticky-tack fouls away from the basket, and at one point Davidson had five second half fouls before Western Michigan was whistled for one.

Davidson's player of the game was definitely Jason Richards, who finished with a personal season-best 23 points. He played a full 40 minutes and also tallied eight assists on the contest. Throughout the game, Richards seemed to be the only Wildcat with his head screwed on straight. He stayed home on defense and continually attacked the Broncos at the heart of their defense.

Davidson was largely beaten because of their inability to stop WMU's penetration. The Broncos beat Davidson off the dribble and were able to kick out for open threes or take it to the hoop for the finish. On offense, the Wildcats were plagued by several shooting droughts and the lack of any offensive potency from players outside of Curry or Richards.

The 25th ranked Wildcats should be given credit, however, for not quitting despite being outshot for most of the game. With 5:14 remaining, Davidson found themselves down by nine points at 67-58. But Stephen Curry connected on a layup, Jason Richards hit a pair of free throws and a three, and then Curry converted on a jumper in a transition opportunity off a steal. Thirty seconds later, Curry hit a three pointer to cut the game to 71-70.

But then David Kool answered for WMU to extend the lead to 74-70 and Curry then fouled out on the next defensive possession. Davidson was unable to hit threes in the final minute despite several opportunities.

Markedly absent from the final stat sheet was Will Archambault. Despite being second on the team last year in three-pointers behind Stephen Curry, Archambault has done relatively little so far this season as he was held scoreless tonight. His counterpart at the three position, Max Paulhus Gosselin, finished 1-5 from the field, but did come up with several big stops and rebounds.

This loss will be a tough pill to swallow for Wildcat fans who were just getting used to being the nation's small-school wonder. Western Michigan seemed to win because of dubious officiating and spectacular shots. But I'm sure that many of Davidson's opponents have whined about the same thing over the last few seasons. This is only the second Davidson loss to a non-BCS school since February of 2006.

During the game broadcast, John Kilgo used every opportunity he could to mention Davidson's national ranking. It might be his last opportunity to do that in quite a while.

Player Profiles: #22 Will Archambault

When I was citing Davidson's four freshman to my friends before last season started, there was always one guy that I kept forgetting. We obviously had an incredibly talented guard from Charlotte coming in, we had a really really tall guy that would hopefully develop into a force in the paint, and we had Mr. Maine! Oh yeah, and that Max clone guy from Canada.

By November 15, 2006, I quickly learned that just because he went to the same high school in Canada, Will Archambault was no clone of Max. I mean this guy had a lot of hair on his head, unlike the freshman-year aero-dynamic Gosselin.

I also learned on that November day that Archambault would probably get a considerable amount of playing time during his freshman year. The sharp-shooter finished with 19 points on four three-pointers in just 22 minutes played. And it wasn't just that he hit four treys, it was from where he hit them. The Archer took several shots with his feet right on the line - the out-of-bounds line.

Although Archambault showed flashes of brilliance at the beginning of the season, a minor injury forced him to sit out the annual rivalry game against Charlotte. Even when the Archer returned to D-I action against UT-Chattanooga, he was visibly off and looked lacking in confidence. He ended up averaging single digit points for the rest of the month of December.

Archambault seemed to shake off his rough month by getting back to his bread and butter...shooting. By the end of the season, Will ranked third on the team in most shots per minute played behind Stephen Curry and Bryant Barr. Archambault finished the year with 55 three-pointers made and an average of 7.8 points per game.

While a lot of unfounded criticism was placed on Davidson for shooting too many three-pointers in their NCAA tournament loss to Maryland, there is some truth to the claim that the Wildcats need to work on their intermediate scoring game in the half-court offense. While Archambault may seem like just another three-point assassin, the rising sophomore actually has an incredible arsenal full of moves and athleticism.

As Kevin Cary pointed out time and again, Archambault has the size to be effective in rebounding and shooting situations close to the basket, and yet he has the speed and quickness to force turnovers one-on-one and to run with Davidson's transition gameplan.

Look for Archambault to log some very important minutes at the top of Davidson's 3/4 court pressure as well as some very important opportunities to throw daggas from the three-point line.

Wildcats Down Bulldogs From Outside

Playing college basketball in the conference season is all about preparation and execution. Teams come into games with loads of film on their opponent. Coaches face each other year in and year out, and teams maintain a competitive familiarity with each other.

The Citadel came into Davidson tonight with a gameplan and a mind toward execution. Far from being the conference doormats that they have largely been stereotyped as, these Bulldogs have already won three conference games and pushed pre-season favorite and cross-town rival College of Charleston to their limits. They came into Belk Arena without fear or trepidation despite their nine-game losing to these Wildcats including an all-time record of 1-9 at Belk Arena.

The Bulldogs got off to a fast start in the first half as they shot 50% from the field and only had one less rebound than the home team 'Cats during the first half. Davidson seemed stagnant coming out of the block as their oft-heralded defense allowed the Bulldogs open looks, and their offense turned the ball over seven times. The Citadel's zone defense kept the Wildcats out of the paint and the Bulldog team speed effectively slowed down Davidson's transition offense. With only a little over a minute remaining in the first half, Davidson held just a slight 5-point edge.

It was that last minute of the first half that made all the difference. Davidson took what The Citadel gave them, 3-point looks, and turned them into "bolts of lightning." Two made three-pointers before the half catapulted the Wildcats to a double digit lead and a second half sequence that opened with Bulldog bricks on one end and 3-point daggers on the other led Davidson to their eventual 79-54 victory.

On the game, Davidson hit a total of 12 three-point field goals, including four from freshmen Stephen Curry and Will Archambault. The Wildcats only averaged around 5 three-point field goals in their last four games. At 16-3 and 7-0 in the conference, Davidson boasts the nation's third longest winning streak at 12 games. As the Wildcats proved on Tuesday, they are ready for the challenge of the conference schedule where opponents know every tendency and work to explout every weakness. The Citadel made Davidson beat them from outside and the Wildcats did just that. Let the winning continue.