Davidson, Curry Await GU in Second Round

RALEIGH, N.C. — Ask junior forward Andrew Lovedale how Davidson, a small-conference power with a 27-6 record, has beaten opponents throughout the season, and he’ll tell you that these Wildcats are fearless.

It also doesn’t hurt that they have one of the nation’s best pure shooters and scorers in sophomore guard Stephen Curry.

In Davidson’s 82-76 victory over Gonzaga yesterday, Curry put on a performance for the ages, finishing with 40 points on 14-of-22 shooting, including eight three-pointers. Thirty of those points came in the second half, erasing the 41-36 lead that Gonzaga had going into halftime.

“It was like an opening-night star performance on Broadway, and he was the star, but he had a great cast with him,” Davidson Head Coach Bob McKillop said after the game. “The audience was sensational. There was a lot of music, great songs, lots of dancing. So it was a Broadway opening that really got great reviews in the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and Newsday, and the Times.”

For tenth-seeded Davidson, the upset validates the success that the team achieved during the regular season. Davidson is one of only three Division I schools with a perfect conference record, and the Wildcats own the longest winning streak in the nation, now at 23 games.

“Watching Davidson makes me feel worried,” Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III said. “That’s a terrific team that’s playing very well right now. You don’t accomplish what they accomplished in their regular season and in their tournament and not be a very good team with very good players.”

Curry is the fifth-best scorer in the country, averaging 25.1 points per game. He does the most damage from the perimeter, averaging 4.3 three-pointers per game.

Curry is known for his quick release, a skill that he learned through practice with his dad, former NBA star Dell Curry. He knows how to get himself open despite all of the defenses that opponents will try. Gonzaga Head Coach Mark Few tried man-to-man and triangle-and-two but said that nothing really worked until they used a zone.

Most importantly, Curry has teammates who will put him in the position to score.

“In the stat sheet it’s not going to show how many screens Thomas, Boris, Andrew and Steve, Max and Jason set for Steph today,” McKillop said, referring to yesterday’s game.

Curry’s supporting cast can do some damage of their own, too. Senior guard Jason Richards had 15 points and nine assists against Gonzaga. He leads the nation in assists — no doubt thanks to Curry — averaging eight per game.

“Stephen Curry is the most outstanding player on that team, but Richards is the most valuable,” said Winthrop Head Coach Randy Peele in the Charlotte Observer after his team’s Feb. 22 loss to Davidson.

In the frontcourt, the Wildcats rely on Lovedale to patrol the boards. He finished with a double-double against Gonzaga yesterday (12 points, 13 rebounds).

“You can’t just focus on [Curry]. He has good players around him, and they have people that can hurt you,” Thompson said. “They are a very balanced team.”

Indeed, the Wildcats are not invincible when Curry puts up mind-boggling numbers. Last year Davidson fell to fourth-seeded Maryland 82-70 in the first round despite an eight-point lead at halftime, and Curry had 30 points in that game.

This year, the Wildcats put together a stacked non-conference schedule to prepare them for teams like the Hoyas. Although games against one-seed UNC, two-seed Duke and one-seed UCLA ended in losses in the regular season, Davidson played each team closely. The Wildcats lost by just four points to the Tar Heels and Blue Devils, and they had an 18-point lead on the Bruins before falling 75-63.

“We got knocked to the mat, but we got in a few punches,” McKillop said in a Newsday article from March 6. “We found out about our toughness. By getting up from the mat, we found out about our resiliency.”

Although Davidson has made it to the NCAA Tournament for three straight years, until yesterday the Wildcats had not won a tournament game since 1969, when legend Lefty Driesell led them to the Elite Eight. That year was also the last time the Wildcats made the national rankings — until they cracked the top-25 two weeks ago.

The most eerie resemblance between Davidson’s 1968-69 season and this one, however, is that their second-round win over Villanova happened here in Raleigh.

Superstition aside, Georgetown will need its defense to clamp down on Curry and the rest of the Wildcats to avoid the upset.

Tip-off is at 2:50 p.m. in the RBC Center Sunday.