Jan. 14, 2009

Will Bryan on DavidsonWildcats.com:

So a little over a year ago, Davidson won a classic conference grudge match at Elon University. Many remember Stephen Curry’s eight points in the final minutes as a defining moment of the season.

I remember that night as the time when Lauren Biggers emerged as the preeminent Davidson basketball blogger. She took over my blog (Will’s World) that night and never turned back.

Tonight, I return the favor.

I promise a few less of these (!) and a little less of that screwy Mac-centered formatting … (I was just told I can’t change that).

So we’re back for SoCon play in Belk Arena. Another capacity crowd was on hand and students were back in school (I don’t remember that break being this long when I was here).

This crowd had all the familiar faces and a few new ones, as Joe Gibbs joined us in the arener with his new season tickets.

This stretch is all about familiarity and repetition. Same coaches and same players that we know and love (Ola ola ola ola). Same trends (Is Brett James sparking a comeback again?)

But in the end, it’s Davidson on top. For the 42nd time in a row (including tournaments), Davidson came out on top against one of those familiar squads with the SoCon logo on their jersey.

So what set this one apart?

Well, there was the focus on interior scoring at the beginning (Rossiter scored his four points in the first three minutes). What about those five blocks and that rebounding advantage (36-33)?

Steph did his thing again. It actually made a message boarder eek that he’s back (he’s back?!?). Dagger three at the end of the half off a 50-50 ball that made new Elon assistant Wes Miller slam his clipboard and Bob McKillop nod.

This was the learning experience that you can’t just sit on your laurels with a 22- point halftime lead.

“We need to be killers,” Steph said.

What about you as the best passer in college basketball?

Head rub. Look to the ground. “Home runs … I need to work on those six turnovers I had. We hadn’t prepared for that full court pressure since we only had time to look at their half-court sets.”

That’s what this is about.

Learning on the fly. Springing new leaks and fixing some old ones.

Print off the box score. Go to the Brickhouse and do it again next week.

It’s almost addicting in its repetition. Be careful Lauren. I might not want to give this back up now.

When’s the next home one? Next Wednesday? Hmm …

Comments?

Jan. 13, 2009

Kruse:

Didn’t watch last night’s game, didn’t even listen to it, just checked the score and the stats periodically while I was at a get-together down here in Tampa and then read the coverage early this morning.

Thoughts:

Some games on the schedule, every year, scream potential loss, and this was one of them. These guys were in Charleston on Saturday night and then had to be in Boone on Monday. That meant the Southern Conference was asking them to bus back to Davidson and arrive in the wee hours of Sunday morning, practice at Belk Sunday afternoon, get back on a bus, drive up into the mountains, spend another night in a hotel, and then play a game against a team that was angry coming off a home loss and was so torqued up to play Davidson the Appalachian game ops people passed out black T-shirts that said BEAT DAVIDSON.

And then Stephen got into foul trouble and played all of 18 minutes.

Still won.

By 18.

It says some things about this group, Davidson basketball in general, where the program is right now, but also about this team in particular.

It says it’s a team that can win games 100-95.

It says it’s a team that can win games 70-52.

It says it’s a team that can win when Stephen scores in the 40s.

It says it’s a team that can win when Stephen scores in the teens.

It says McKillop and Matheny and Fox have been doing this for a long time now, and together, and that they know what they’re doing, and in a way that is very unusual.

It’s the kind of win that makes the 20-0 talk at least understandable if still more than a tad premature.

Again, I wasn’t there, and I didn’t watch the Web feed, so I don’t know what it looked like, and felt like, and stats are only stats, but …

22.2 percent from three for Appalachian.

3-for-4 from three for Max.

1 turnover in 22 minutes for Brendan.

Eight guys in double figures in minutes and four guys in double figures in points.

Davidson: 17 assists, 9 turnovers; Appalachian: 8 assists, 17 turnovers.

And absolutely the craziest number on that box score? 8,350 – the biggest crowd ever to watch a game at the Holmes Center up there, bigger even than the facility’s very first game, against Carolina.

What this is right now, what this has become, it’s stunning, it’s still stunning, and I don’t know that it will ever be anything other than stunning.

Comments?

Jan. 11, 2009

Kruse:

Been to three games over this last week – Samford in Davidson, Duke in Durham, The Citadel in Charleston – and you’re reminded in Southern Conference games that no one in the league can guard Stephen. With the ball in his hands, at this level of play, he can create space for a jumper if he wants to – whenever he needs to – and he can get into the lane at will and at worst get to line. He shot 18 free throws last month against Chattanooga. He shot 14 last night.

Comments?

Jan. 9, 2009

Kruse on 16point8.blogspot.com:

An e-mail back-and-forth with Kansas City Star KU beat man Brady McCollough:

Me: Enjoyed your piece. Posted it on the blog at 16point8.blogspot.com. I’ve obviously thought A LOT about that moment, probably too much, but hey – it felt right, and it feels right, and so I thought about it and still think about it. In your story, you write about the image of Self on his knees – “the purest kind of relief” – and that’s part of the conversation that’s been going on mainly in my own head since almost that moment itself. Since Detroit. Was starting to knock around up there literally as I was walking out of Ford Field. Question: What to make of the differences between the emotions being felt in the immediate aftermath of that game by Kansas fans and by Davidson fans? In other words: The predominant emotion on the Kansas side was Self’s emotion: RELIEF. The predominant emotion on the Davidson side, I think, was … fullness? Maybe that’s a tad revisionist. Missed opportunity, for sure, but the emotions I was feeling right after that game, and the emotions that were being felt by many others on the Davidson side, were just so … overwhelming. So varied. So full. So … interesting. Contrast that with relief. Relief is a form of happiness, for sure, but it also, by definition, is happiness above all else, I think, that the OTHER thing did NOT happen, not that THIS thing DID. You know?

Brady: That difference in emotions is what made the Kansas-Davidson game the most fascinating psychological battle of the college basketball season last year. You had Kansas, a basketball blueblood and perennial power that had not performed up to expectations in the NCAA Tournament in five years and hadn’t won the big one in 20 years. In the Jayhawks’ corner, all you had was negative energy on that day: Bill Self’s 0-4 record in the Elite Eight (encompassing trips with Tulsa, Illinois and KU) and Jayhawk failures under Roy Williams (losing to Arizona in 1997, Rhode Island in 1998 and Syracuse in 2003). The Jayhawks played like they understood their reality all too well: If they lost, they would let down hundreds of thousands of fans and alumni. Then you had Davidson, with enough positive vibes to make downtown Detroit seem less Gotham and more Metropolis. (Okay, not quite that positive). Davidson had America pulling for it, they had absolutely no expectations to live up to and that’s how they played. When Jason Richards’ shot didn’t fall, Davidson’s fans were crushed, of course. But they appreciated the fleetingness of the moment. Kansas fans, after a loss, would have left the arena assuming that a trip to the Elite Eight in the next few years was a foregone conclusion. They would have gone home to their Rivals.com accounts and started forecasting the 2010 starting lineup. Davidson fans left the arena with the stark realization that they may never experience those two hours ever again. Am I right?

Me: Fleeting, yes, granted – absolutely – but NEVER is a big word. There were plenty of people there that day in Detroit, middle-aged men, dressed in red and black, who were boys the last time Davidson played a game for a spot in the Final Four, against Carolina, in College Park, back in 1969, and still have vivid memories. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to judge and in essence try to quantify the validity or the intrinsic value of one fan’s experience of that moment versus that of another. But I do wonder: Let’s say Davidson fans really did understand – your word – the “fleetingness” of that moment. The specialness. Let’s say that because of that they watched it and felt it that much more intently. Let’s say Kansas fans left thinking mainly: Whew, what a relief, that was close, too close, shouldn’t have been that close. Let’s say life is pretty much white noise, blah, blah, blah, one foot in front of the other, except for very, VERY few moments of true, clear meaning, where time practically slows to a stop, and that give you the energy to even begin to put up with all the blah, blah, blah. Davidson got one of those moments, and its fans, even inside that moment, right then and there, seemed to know it. Kansas fans? They wanted the shot to miss. Maybe I’m being totally unfair. But I can’t help but compare.

Comments?

At Cameron Indoor

On 16point8.blogspot.com:

The guys on Davidson’s basketball don’t come to Duke to lose. But they do come here to get exposed. They come here to see how or if they respond to that. They come here to see who they are and also who they might be able to be.

Sometimes, McKillop has said plenty in the past, you learn more from losing than you do from winning.

This time of the year typically is where a Davidson basketball season starts to get interesting. There are enough games -- there’s enough data -- for McKillop and Matheny and the rest of them to start tinkering. What works? What doesn’t? Where to now? How to be the best possible team come late February and heading into March?

Those of us who watch can start to see a team emerge.

Going into tonight, though, I didn’t have a real good sense for this group. Was this Stephen Curry and The Others? Or was this a Davidson basketball team with a first-team All-American?

Well.

Now we know.

This is a team that can go down 57-31, with 14:33 to go, at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

This is a team that can then outscore Duke 30-12 over the next 10 or so minutes.

This is a team that got rebounds from Andrew and Steve, threes from Stephen and Brendan, a layup from Max, a DUNK from Stephen, and stretches of stops against the nation’s No. 2 team.

With about three and a half minutes to go tonight, the score was 69-61, and it was loud as shit in here.

This wasn’t a game.

Then it was.

The guys from Duke had to earn this fucker tonight.

And the guys from Davidson left knowing that.

Comments?

Jan. 7, 2009

Claire:

In the last two years, they’ve taught me to believe that they always have the ability to win. That we can play against anyone. And that’s why sometimes, it’s frustrating as hell. But that’s also why it’s exciting.

Comments?

Jan. 5, 2009

Kruse, traveling:

Yesterday early on my drive back from Davidson, on the radio somewhere between Columbia and I-95, I happened upon Larry Smith talking on a talk show about his book of six-word memoirs.

Like this one from Elizabeth Gilbert: “Me see world! Me write stories!”

Or this one from Dave Eggers: “Fifteen years since last professional haircut.”

All goes back to the best six-word story ever written. Comes from Hemingway. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

So … clearly … in the car … 585 miles … driving from up there to down here … six-word stories about Davidson basketball!

I’ll start.

“McKillop: got somewhere by staying put.”

“Overlooked. Too small. I am here.”

“Wins are nice. Success is better.”

“Nine hours from Tampa. Can’t stop.”

“Who’d have thought? The story continues.”

Okay.

Your turn.

Comments?

Jan. 4, 2009: Crowds

16point8.blogspot.com:

Jeanette Scire came into the press room before the game Saturday afternoon and said she had seen a man outside holding a sign saying he needed tickets. Scott Fowler said on press row he had seen a father with his redheaded toddler daughter standing outside, and both of them, the man and his little girl, were holding up two fingers, looking for a way in. Tripp Cherry said after the game that he had seen the same things.

For a game against Samford.

On Jan. 3.

Over Christmas break.

With no students on campus.

Not a seat to be had.

Jeanette’s been at Davidson for a while, almost 20 years, and so she remembers on game days in the early ‘90s going around town with Susan Mercer and trying to give people tickets.

Here.

Just take them.

Just please come.

Sometimes these days, like yesterday, when I sit there and I look around at 5,223 at Belk, crammed in, all those people making all that noise all the way up to the roof, I think of something good fan Danny Smith told me last summer when we talked for the book. I don’t have my notes with me, so I hope I’m remembering this right, but he said he brought his family to Belk in December 1995 to watch Davidson play N.C. State. It was their first game ever.

They enjoyed it so much they decided to buy season tickets, Danny said, so he came back to campus the following week and found Lee Sargent, the ticket man at the time, and asked about maybe getting some seats.

Lee took Danny into the arena.

He walked toward center court.

He took a right and started to walk down the steps, and he kept walking, and he didn’t stop until he was standing in the front row.

Lee looked at Danny.

“How about these?”

That was 13 years ago.

Comments?

Jan. 4, 2009

More 16point8:

Davidson: where scouts from the T’wolves and the Thunder share space on press row with The Presbyterian Outlook.

Comments?

Dec. 23, 2008

Kruse:

Sporting News: “Will you be back for your senior year?”

Stephen: “That’s the plan right now. I don’t want to think too much about a decision I have to make at the end of the year because that will distract me for this season.”

Talk. Lots of talk. Always the talk. The expected talk.

What it is.

The seven keys of Davidson basketball are:

1. Have an act.

2. See.

3. Talk.

4. Flesh to flesh.

5. Balance.

6. Details.

7. Finish.

Comments?

Dec. 21, 2008: More

Michael on 16point8.blogspot.com:

Things I thought watching from my spot on the baseline at Conseco: Brendan is getting better. I’m comfortable with the ball in Max’s hands too. Frank is going to be excellent. Will looked good. Stephen looked beat. Wasn’t the first time. Steve’s got to stay on the floor. Bryant’s defense? Three-point defense? The first time Stephen didn’t live up to or exceed expectations with so many watching: a moment that was inevitable. And important. It’ll tamp down some of the hyperbole. Not all bad. Seasons are seasons for reasons: up and down, peaks and dips, problems to solve. December is early. Merry Christmas.

Comments?

Dec. 21, 2008

Me on writinggirl.blogspot.com:

I flew into Charlotte last Saturday. It was sunny and cool and Mom and Dad picked me up and all my luggage came through (no lost luggage! hallelujah!) and we drove up I-77. We got off at Exit 25 to get gas and then drove through Cornelius – oh cute little Cornelius with all its Christmas decorations and the
elementary school and the city hall and the churches and flea market – and passed the Molly McKay House and Davidson United Methodist Church and the biggest grin spread across my face. HOME!!!!! Have I really not seen you in so long?

We came down and parked next to CVS and I tripped out of the car with my Sweet 16 shirt and my next-to-nothing Birkenstocks and ratty jeans and BELONGED. Immediately. And we went to the Soda Shop for lunch – where we always go, one of the first places we went ever – and sat down in the back booth and I heard and saw and tasted so much familiarity and love of this little town on a cold wintry cozy Saturday afternoon before a basketball game. Didn't even have to look at the menu. Mom and Dad hardly did either. We just know it.

We drove and parked across from the health center and I traipsed curving around Rich and behind Belk (spotting my 2 old Belk windows in a quick glance) and up past Duke and it was so quiet and dead, oh exams, but quiet and calm and breezytrees and cobblestone under my feet. And I went into the student union with that soft buzzing of morning studying and found Rob on the couch and soon Ellen came down and later, after I changed my status to “Claire is sitting in the Davidson College Student Union. Basketball game later. Homehomehomehome!!” I went up the stairs and saw John and then sat with Mom and Dad by the Christmas tree by the fireplace and lounged there all afternoon like I’d never left. Even though I felt distinctly different all at the same time, there was no place I would rather be. The door opened and closed and people walked up the stairs and I called names and people stared excited/confused/huh? weren’t you gone? and Sarah Mac shrieked and crashed into me and Mary said “just the person I’ve been wanting to see!” and hugs and smiles and these people mean so much to me. Soso much. And dinner, dinner was the best because it was Saturday night pre-basketball game rush dinner and that means students/professors/kids/townies all together let’s eat and go down to Baker! I sat at a table across from the 900 Room eating Union pizza and drinking Snapple and watching my friends come up the stairs and jumping up again and again to see them, with shrieks of my own. Dev and Rachel and Katie and then Zach came up and it made me breathe deeper and smile wider to see his face and hear his voice. Then Lindsay!! beaming in her scarf and jacket, hugged me, gave me my endzone ticket –finally, the day we’d talked about for so long!!! And we linked arms and chatted and giggled and walked out of the union down the walkway past warm Southern voices in cold air and the Wildcat, joining the growing crowd, and as we approached the doors I breathed, “I think I’m going to cry.” Because it is HOME. It is where I am supposed to be. Yes, definitely, I was supposed to be in England – I don’t mean to downplay it in any way, shape, or form – but part of being in England was always going to be coming back here after being gone and having had those new wonderful experiences.

Cominghomehomecoming. Here I am. And it was exactly right.

We walked into that thick warm atmosphere of popcorn smell and people and rubbergym smell and the buzz of brass blaring behind the glass doors and the murmurs and mumbles of being normal, being at home – going to see the boys play. GOING TO SEE THE BOYS PLAY. Like no time had passed between the last time I’d seen them play – March 30, 2008 ohdeargod – and here and now, December. No time since I last saw them play at HOME – February 27, 2008 – and ten (TEN?!) months later. So much has changed and yet nothing. Mike was standing there in the endzone waiting for us, MIKE! and we all talked and I leaned against my seat and just watched, listened, as it filled up with people that I know and people that I’ve never met, and watched the boys shoot hoops and pass and dribble in the warmup, with the pep band accompanying them beside me. Savored the buzz and the voice of the announcer and the little kids and the token music and watching the place fill up to the rafters, sold out on the Saturday night of exams. Ha! Kilgo and Kruse down below on press row. David, grinning, dimples bursting, and throwing his arms around me, “WELCOME HOME!” Guitar riffs and the energy of an entire arena of 5000 people standing and screaming as the Cats take the court, always Bryant first.

And the Star-Spangled Banner.

Oh, the Star-Spangled Banner.

Kelsey sang it, and I got shivers before it even started, as we stood and shushed each other and waited, one little bit of this country waited and looked at a flag. A flag I hadn’t seen in awhile. Listening to a song I needed to hear. My palm covered my heart. I always do that, and I always feel very significant when I do it – it’s a tradition, yes, and I adore tradition – it makes me feel within a bigger something, within a history and a staunch need to recognize who I am amongst others and how, though we are different, we are the same. Because we come from different places to be here, we are the same. Because it’s a song that I learned years and years ago and I honor people as I sing it – people I’ve never met, my best friends, my family, people who died a long time ago and who died today. Because I showed my United States passport every time I traveled and when I came back home. Because I was born here, because I’ve lived here my entire life except for the last three months. Because I voted. Because even when things are harder and strange outside this little cozy arena we still sing it. And I sang it because I was home.

The boys played. I screamed, sang, jumped up and down way too much for a girl who has traveled for over twenty-four hours and whose internal clock thinks it is one in the morning. I cursed (once Tory got there – yaaaay Tory!! – and I let out an especially loud profanity, he turned to me and said, “Claire, you’re back! This is crazy!” Yes, my screechy swearing is a sure sign), cackled with laughter, yelled their names. I missed ‘08, players and friends. I loved looking at my friends, people I have so many memories with, and looking at faces I didn’t recognize, freshmen who are just beginning to come into it all. I turned around and talked to friends, talked to new people (apologized for my screaming). When I saw Tom Ross and Fountain and familiar faces I felt like I’d just seen them yesterday. I sang the fight song that I have not forgotten, started cheers and let them go. My friends and I yelled at the townies to stand up and I think I pulled a muscle in my right arm trying to distract the Mocs at the free throw line. I climbed over chairs to reach people, Kealy, Emily, Jamie! I wandered around the lobby after it was all over and waning. I loved coming back into it all, letting it surround me.

The entire day, when people heard I was going to the game, they would say in a slightly impressed/slightly you-are-CRAZY voice, “Wow, you’re such a great fan!” Of course that’s part of it; but with that, more than that, intricately tied and connected to that, what makes me a great fan of the boys is something I’ve said a lot a LOT over the past year especially, that they are ours and we are theirs, and being within the community during these games is one of my favorite manifestations of belonging to Davidson and sharing with friends and strangers, being one community. Of knowing and appreciating what this place is and what it’s done for us. “This place,” Davidson, equals people. And I needed to be with them again.

Comments?

Dec. 20, 2008

And more Kruse:

David Sink brought it up on DavidsonCats.com.

Bob Huggins brought it up on The Dan Patrick Show.

John Akers brought it up in his cover story in this month’s Basketball Times.

I brought it up, briefly, last month in Staying Stephen in Charlotte mag.

It’s hard not to start doing the math in your head. All of this is totally cart-before-the-horse, but let’s say Stephen stays four years, and let’s say he keeps scoring the way he’s scoring, and let’s say he plays in all of Davidson’s games. Let’s say that’s 60 more games. Let’s say he scores 30 points per. That’s 1,800 points. Add that to the number of points he has now, which is 1,948 going into Purdue.

That’s more than Maravich.

“Pistol” Pete Maravich was not big, 6-foot-3 and 150 pounds in his senior year of high school at Raleigh Broughton, and he was skinny and even gaunt during his years at LSU. But he scored like no one had ever scored before and like no one has ever scored since. He scored from all over the court. The points just piled up. He drew crowds everywhere LSU went. People just had to see him play.

He scored 40 or more 56 times.

He scored 50 or more 28 times.

He scored 3,667 points in his college career, the all-time college record, thought to be all but unbreakable, and he did it in three years because freshmen were ineligible to play varsity back then, and he did it, too, with no three-point line. He averaged more than 44 points a game. What made Maravich all the more compelling was that he didn’t look like he should have been able to do what he did.

Which gets to Stephen.

If he comes back for his senior season the Pistol talk is going to get loud.

But they’re more different than they are alike.

Read Mark Kriegel’s Pistol. Read Phil Berger’s Forever Showtime. Read the stories from Sports Illustrated in the archives on SI.com.

Maravich played, consciously and purposefully, to put on a show.

“If I have a choice whether to do the show or throw the straight pass, and we’re going to get the basket either way,” he told SI in 1969, “I’m going to do the show.

“Sometimes,” he said, “when we start out and I see the play developing, I just want to shout out, ‘Hey, here we go. Hey, everybody watch this.’”

He never won a game in the NCAA tournament.

He never played a game in the NCAA tournament.

In the NBA, he led the league in scoring, and he was an All-Star, but he seldom played on a team that won more than it lost.

The most points he ever scored in a game, college or pro, came against Alabama. He had 69. LSU lost.

He hurt his knee – the injury that hastened the end of his career – while throwing a between-the-legs pass on a three-on-oh break.

And then there’s this: He scored a ton of points, and he made a ton of money, but for most of his life he was very, very unhappy. His father was obsessive and pushed him mercilessly. His mother was mentally ill and committed suicide. He drank too much. He drove too fast. He felt old when he wasn’t. In the last few years of his life, before he died of a heart attack, at 40, he found some personal peace, finally. But during his career in the NBA, he often seemed moody or joyless, and he talked at times about aliens and UFOs and at one point painted a message to them on the roof of his condo in Atlanta.

“Take me.”

Pete Maravich played basketball as an escape from who he was.

Stephen Curry plays basketball as an extension of who he is.

Comments?

Dec. 18, 2008

More from Kruse:

Andrew is the eighth of 10 children. He lost his father when he was 13. He didn’t start playing basketball seriously until he moved to England when he was 17. He sings gospel songs, every day, often alone. He says it uplifts his spirit. He says it keeps him in touch with the source. He says his favorite is God Will Make A Way. “A roadway in the wilderness,” that song says. In the locker room after the win over Gonzaga, he told me last spring, he saw peace.

Before he started playing basketball in England, he said, when he was maybe 15 and still living in Benin City, Nigeria, he barely knew the rules of the sport. He was curious enough, though, to go to the playground near his home to watch the “big boys,” he said, bolt barefoot up and down the concrete court with wooden backboards and rims with no nets. They were older, bigger and stronger, but the way they played, he thought, was wild and unstructured.

“I felt,” he told me, “they were running without purpose.”

Comments?

Dec. 16, 2008

On 16point8:

Kyle Whelliston was the first guy with a national platform who wrote about Stephen.

“This was no fresh-faced kid,” he wrote, on ESPN.com, way back on Dec. 20, 2006. “What we had here was a baby-faced assassin.”

Later, what seems like much later – last summer, when Kyle and I talked for the book – he said this: “Folks were heckling him, ‘You look like you’re 12,’ and he did look like he was 12. But he kept hitting shots. And the points were secondary. It was the poise. He was in control of that game. The timing of the shots. The degree of difficulty. He took that game and did what he wanted.”

Kyle is no stranger at all to Davidson basketball, and he travels like an absolute nut, which I respect, and he goes enough places and sees enough games and talks to enough people to earn the right to say what he says.

Also, most of the many things that have been written about Stephen over the last two years have said basically the same stuff – I’ve read everything – so any piece of original reporting or new insight tends to stick out.

So here’s what Kyle wrote this morning:

We the media (especially the ones who are just now getting on the bandwagon and need to write glowing copy to justify the trip expense) are in that uncomfortable intersection between starstruck awe, competition for remaining superlatives and the careful soft-shoe around actual criticism of the 20-25 minutes when he’s not clicking. The guy is carrying a backcourt and a team and a school and a conference on his slim shoulders, and the strain is showing. His eyes bulge during timeouts and he clutches his shorts a lot … that wasn’t happening nearly as much last year. Is he ready for the NBA? Who really knows. But if he gets through this season alive, he’s simply superhuman.

Comments?

Dec. 15, 2008

16point8.blogspot.com:

Got this in my inbox the other day: “What does the ‘16.8’ represent with respect to Davidson basketball? Just curious.”

In a word: hope.

In two words: a moment.

In three words: earned and experienced.

Allow me to quote Gus Johnson, CBS Sports, March 30, 2008, Ford Field, Detroit: “Five to shoot!

“Collins!

“Three to shoot!

“Lets go!

“Off the front rim …

“No!

“And with 16.8 to go!

“DAVIDSON!

“WITH LIFE!”

Comments?

Wildcats in New York

Lefty's Legacy:

I remember Knicks-playoffs loud. I grew up a Knicks fan, and relished the team’s physical and sometimes violent style of play (multiple TV remote controls met their fate during my childhood after especially stressful Knicks playoff games). For me, Madison Square Garden has always been the greatest arena on earth, and I didn’t think twice in making my pilgrimage to this hallowed venue to see Davidson play West Virginia on Tuesday. Considering the mediocrity on display in the garden over the last decade or so, Stephen Curry’s brilliance made Tuesday night one of the most exciting nights that the MSG crowd has seen in quite awhile. Having arrived in New York City after a busy morning of work in DC and a frantic afternoon Amtrak and subway dash north, I met my colleague Base Rich, himself just completing a bus ride from Boston, and we made our way to our 10th row seats, directly behind the basket, hardly able to contain our excitement. Near the end of warmups, Lupe Fiasco’s “Superstar” came on over the speakers, and BR exclaimed, “they’re playing our song!” I didn’t get it at first. By the end of the night, though, the city that never sleeps would witness the greatness of Stephen Curry, and it would be obvious that, as Gus Johnson would say, “folks, we got a star!”

Everyone always talks about how Curry is a better person than basketball player (one of the most annoying cliches in sports), but I had yet to see this first-hand. Standing outside of the Davidson bar after the game Tuesday night, BR and I found ourselves suddenly amongst the entire team as they prepared to board their bus back to Davidson. At first, I didn’t even realize that the kid next to me in a gray hoodie chatting with some friends was the man himself, and after a nervous pause, I quickly shook Steph’s hand, congratulated him, and he returned the praise with a sincere “ohh, thanks a lot man!” that immediately made me realize that all the hype still had not gone to his head. Despite carrying the hopes of Davidson nation on his small frame game after game, Steph was still just a regular kid, enjoying college, but seemingly thinking little of being one of the greatest college basketball players of our generation.

Steph struggled mightily at first under the burning MSG spotlights, but in crunch time, as we have seen so often, he drilled the shots that mattered. With our invincible Curry weapon armed at the end of every game, Davidson is a hard team for anyone to beat. Oklahoma, with a 21-point lead on their home floor, barely salvaged a 4-point win after a late-game Curry onslaught. NC State was buried by a long-distance Curry bomb, and now West Virginia is the latest victim of Curry’s magical skills in the clutch. Moreover, Will Archambault’s 20-point outburst and Andrew Lovedale’s 18 rebound effort last night suggest that this team has an array of budding stars capable of complimenting Curry’s ridiculousness in tight games.

John Starks has always been my favorite Knicks player as he represented a time in Knicks history, and the NBA in general, when players wore their hearts on their sleeves and battled against playoff rivals as though their lives depended on the outcome. It might sound a bit dramatic, but I see Stephen Curry as a transformational player. I think his creative and unique game on the court, his uncanny ability to always rise to the occasion, and the inspiring story of his arrival from obscurity to superstar status could make the NBA fun again.

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Back at the hotel after Wisconsin

Dec. 14, 2008

On 16point8.blogspot.com:

Have just a little time here in the union at Davidson before heading back to Florida after a week-plus of the Wildcats and the book and New York and friendship and fellowship and Blue Moon at the Brickhouse. Some quick thoughts on last night:

*** Something I’ve heard enough to be a pattern: “Stephen had an off night, and he still had … ”

I heard it after the Oklahoma game in which he had 44 points. Could’ve been 60, I heard people say. Shoot, I heard MYSELF say that.

I heard it after State. Also 44 points.

I heard it at Madison Square Garden, where, granted, he wasn’t his sharp self for most of the game but still managed by the end to be THE SHOW in MIDTOWN MANHATTAN.

And I heard it last night.

The kid had 41 points in 36 minutes. He made half of the shots he attempted from the floor. He made five of the 11 threes he shot. He missed four free throws, yes, which is uncharacteristic, almost shocking, but he also made 14 of them. He had six assists and four rebounds and a steal. I’m not sure what people are wanting from No. 30, or expecting, and I know his shots look so pretty, whether they’re misses or makes, but …

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Dec. 13, 2008

Me, on a plane from Baltimore to Charlotte...

As I went through the metal detector here in Baltimore the security guy pointed at me and said -- "You almost lost --"

What? My keys, my hair thing?

"-- to West Virginia last week."

Oh yeah! I'm wearing my Sweet 16 shirt!

"But we didn't!" I said, smiling as I went.

Seriously -- seriously -- No. 1, 365 days ago I don't know if a Baltimore security guard would've known about us. No. 2, he would've said, "You almost beat UCLA last week."

Wow.

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Dec. 12, 2008

16point8.blogspot.com:

I could've missed this somewhere, but I read pretty much everything, and McKillop did say this the other night in the press conference after the game at the Garden:

"Stephen Curry is loved by his teammates. Loved."

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Dec. 10, 2008

In my journal, two days before I left England:

I listened/watched the Davidson-WVU game from 12-2:30 with Dad, Patty, and Lindsay -- so fun! And last United Kingdom one!

We won a basketball game in Madison Square Garden.

It was so ugly.

We won in about the last 2 minutes.

Who do you think scored our last 13/14 points after being horribly off?

YAY!! We are pulling out ugly games in DECEMBER, folks. I know it's not great in a sense, BUT WE ARE MAKING CLUTCH PLAYS AND WINNING.

Jason and Thomas were there! They were on with Kilgo at the half -- JK: "We have our boys back!" Always. Always our boys.

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Dec. 9, 2008

More Kruse:

He never stops shooting.

Never.

Not ever.

Back before LAST season, back when I had seen Stephen play in person all of once, back before the second straight 29-win season, back before Gonzaga, Georgetown, Wisconsin and a shot in the air -- back before all that -- I went to Davidson to report a story for Charlotte magazine and this is what the coaches told me: The kid can miss a shot. He can miss two shots, three shots, four shots, five shots, 10 shots. It doesn't matter.

He never stops shooting.

Lives in the moment. Never about the last one. Always about THIS one.

And so this is what I found myself writing, over and over, in my notebook tonight at the Garden.

He never stops shooting.

Back rim.

He never stops shooting.

Front rim.

He never stops shooting.

In and out.

He never stops shooting.

So there's more to say about tonight, much more, and I'll get to it, but right now I kind of want to go meet Meg and Chip and Eddie for drinks at the Playwright on 35th between 5th and 6th.

Just quickly, though, just so we're clear about what happened here. These guys played at Madison Square Garden tonight and they did so without their best defender. They got out-rebounded 58-32, which is hard to do, and gave up 29 offensive rebounds, which is hard to do, too. They missed seven free throws. A freshman walk-on played nine minutes. Most of the team was in foul trouble most of the night. And Stephen missed more shots than he has in goodness knows how long.

And they won.

On ESPN.

In The World's Most Famous Arena.

And when Stephen hit that first late three deep from the left wing, and then that second late three deep from the right wing, ESPECIALLY that second late three, this place was nothing but noise for No. 30 and the rest of the kids from the village.

"He is," McKillop told all the people at the press conference after the game, "a very, VERY rare young man."

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Dec. 7, 2008: Stories

Kruse:

Bro Krift, Class of '99, who has season tickets even though he lives in Pittsburgh, e-mailed me a question last week.

"In all of your reporting on the team for the book, which player impressed you, and how? I have a feeling it's one of the guys that hasn't made headlines."

It's true.

One of the very few shames of having Stephen in these last eight or so months go from star to superstar to phenomenon is that some of the other guys on the roster who have great, great stories aren't really having those stories told.

Andrew Lovedale is a kid from Nigeria who sings gospel songs and brings old sneakers and basketballs back to his country when he goes home in the summers for goodness sake.

Bryant Barr is a double major in math and economics who speaks to church youth groups and to celebrate his math major last year got together with his fellow math majors and made pies with Pi logos on them. Just a nerd with a jumpshot, Bryant is, and proudly, and admittedly, and unabashedly.

Steve Rossiter? The kid was offered a scholarship in part because of the way he cheered for his backup at the ends of games in high school in Staten Island.

Certainly, though, at or near the top of this list, at least for me, is Max.

Today, given yesterday, it seems maybe particularly apropos to say as much.

It was a bad foul.

It was.

It looked even worse.

And I haven't talked to Max since, haven't even seen him, not down in Charlotte after the game, not up here in Davidson, but I can say that he absolutely didn't go toward that kid with intent to harm. It's just not Max.

The first time McKillop ever saw Max was at an all-star camp in Atchison, Kansas, and Max was running and jumping and diving in a game being played in a gym that was so stuffy and so hot that other players started calling it "the oven."

McKillop went to visit Max in the suburbs of Montreal and told his parents their son was the rare sort who could have, he thought, an enormous influence on the outcome of a game without scoring a point.

Fine Davidson fan Meg Clark told me last spring that Max was working the fall of his freshman year at the carnival at Belk Arena to kick off the season and that he came over to a game where young kids were trying to throw rubber rings onto bottle necks. He got down on his knees and talked to the kids and helped them with their throws and called them all "buddy."

Max, Meg thought then, and thinks still now, has a gift that is hard to explain but plain to see:

He makes the people around him feel good.

Max:

He spoke no English three years before he got to Davidson.

He didn't understand why some of the coaches from some of the schools that were recruiting him were telling him about how hot the girls were or how good the weather was on their campuses.

He picked Davidson, he told me in April, because he is so close to his own family.

"Human relationships," he said.

"I didn't want to just be a teammate."

He has a habit of touching guys on their shoulders in huddles.

"I think physical contact conveys a lot of meaning," he said in that meeting in April. "I think of the team as family. Are you going to tell your mother every five minutes that you love her? No. But you can touch her shoulder, lean against her, and feel close."

He doesn't watch TV.

He doesn't watch sports on TV.

The only basketball games he watches are the ones he plays in.

He majors in sociology because he is fascinated by how people who are different try to get along.

He is one of the best students on the team.

I have found Max, always, to be bright and open, and interesting and interested, and the best kind of curious.

"In life," he has written on his Facebook page, "everything is a first time."

In June, in Chambly, Quebec, I met on a sunny Saturday morning for a long breakfast with Max and his parents.

Max's father's father was a pig farmer and a beet farmer and did that from early in the morning to 2 in the afternoon and then went to work his shift treading tires at a local factory. He did that for 27 years.

Max's is father is one of Canada's most successful importers of cheese. It's a family business.

"We work not in the spirit of we have to," Jean-Philippe Gosselin said. "We work because we like what we do and the feeling of accomplishment."

The motivation in his work, he explained, sometimes in English to me, sometimes in French to Max, who then translated, is not motivated by fear or money, but by the belief that the pursuit and the competition are intrinsically worthwhile.

At this point in the notebook I had with me that morning, written in scribbles, is a note to myself -- I'm looking at it right now -- and it says:

The goal was never to make it to the Elite Eight or the Final Four. The goal was to play so hard, and so well, and so together, that such a thing became a possibility.

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Dec. 7, 2008

Lefty's Legacy:

When I watch King James watch Steph Curry, I can't help but think he's thinking:

Man, I should've gone to college. Forget the fact that I was ready for the League at age 15. This would've been fun.

Sure, he's been spotted at precisely two Davidson games -- hardly meaningful on its face -- but he appears enraptured. He's not pecking out emails on his Blackberry, he's standing up, arms aloft, mouth agape in disbelief, just like a normal, or non-King, human might be expected to behave in response to Curry's wizardry.

It's easily to live vicariously through Steph Curry. I do it about twice a week when I don my Eric Blancett jersey and begin scrolling feverishly through the DirectTV guide in search of whatever oddball backyard southern sports network is broadcasting the game. It's easy to do because it's almost believable. We're about the same size as Steph Curry. Our egos are similarly proportional. And, for those of us fortunate enough to have gone to Davidson, we have a pretty good sense of what he eats everyday and where he takes those meals.

What is, of course, completely unbelievable (and makes this whole vicariousness thing fun) is Steph's performance on the court. The purity of his game, of his joy, is what this whole college thing is supposed to be about. Over the past ten or fifteen years, we haven't seen enough of that. Perhaps then it's understandable why LeBron would forego college. It all seemed rather perfunctory. I just have a feeling though, that if James were but a junior in high school today, he might be a hair more inclined to defer his entrance into the NBA.

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Dec. 6, 2008: Across an ocean

From my journal in England:

WE BEAT NC STATE!!

FINALLY! 72-67

(44 for Steph.)

King James was there, and so was JRich! But I wasn't.

But Becca and I screamed and then Elizabeth and Michele called on Skype with Chris, and we all sang Sweet Caroline, from Italy and Switzerland to England. Hahahahaha I love us.

7 days. AHHHH!

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Dec. 6, 2008: Aftermath

Lauren on DavidsonWildcats.com:

The last time the Davidson Wildcats played at Time Warner Cable Arena it wasn't called Time Warner Cable Arena. The opponents weren't simultaneously members of the all-mighty ACC and underdogs. There was no such thing as a White Lobster, and it's quite possible that The King had never even heard of his newest BFF.

The AP story started like this:

"Gerald Henderson scored 21 points and Greg Paulhus had two key baskets and a steal in the final 2 minutes as No. 7 Duke remained unbeaten by holding off pesky Davidson 79-73 on Saturday."

A year and five days later:

"Stephen Curry had just drilled a 30-foot fadeaway despite an awkward release that resembled a set shot -- and it was too much for his buddy LeBron James to take."

Well, one thing's for sure, this was nothing like the last time the Wildcats went Uptown.

This time, Davidson brought a national ranking. Defended it. The battle on the boards? Won it. A late lead. Held it.

These Wildcats have, in fact, come leaps and bounds in a year, and in the light of the RBC Center, Sweet Caroline and that really cool police escort, the journey sometimes gets taken for granted.

After the game, I took my dad and my uncle, both N.C. State alums, to the post-game press conference.

"I'm not very happy right now," my uncle says, and I am reminded that not everyone in the world pulls for Davidson. Strange.

Behind the podium sits a subdued trio of Wildcats. It's a scene that looks and feels strangely similar to a season ago, but I'm struck by the profound difference.

A season ago, A Coach and Two Wildcats sat on the stage mutedly, sadly answering questions about running with the big boys.

A year and five days later, A Coach and Two Wildcats sat on the stage mutedly, thankfully answering questions about LeBron James.

Weird.

Comments?

Dec. 6, 2008

On Lefty's Legacy:

Davidson head coach Bob McKillop is a compelling figure. He’s the New Yorker who, for the past twenty years, has strolled down the sleepy streets of a southern college town to pick up his mail. He’s an enigmatic speaker with a penchant for metaphor whose delivery is as impeccable as his dress, yet he’s eminently humble. As a coach, he’s a brilliant tactician. His keen eye for detail and tireless commitment to the unsloppy way make him the envy of his peers. If there is a truly beautiful strategist in the modern game, he lives twenty feet from campus and once dreamt of the day that his college’s apparel would be sold in the local airport. But even more, McKillop has a way of inspiring his squads to play beyond themselves that is nonpareil.

It’s easy to credit McKillop for all of the successes of the past few seasons (with a healthy nod to the Lohengrin-like Steph Curry for the past two), but a story published today by Charlotte-based radio station WFAE gives us new reason to acknowledge the contributions of his players. Shortly after the heart-in-mouth ending of last season, the players issued a four-page memo to their coach. Said McKillop in the interview: “They met as a team and put together this four page manifesto, and it covered a variety of topics from the standpoint of basketball technique, training methods, practice sessions, schedule, involvement in the community, the way we would travel, diet.”

That’s a beautiful thing. I quickly began to miss the point though, wondering who the chief architect might’ve been. Lovedale did have a way with words in that elite eight post-game interview. But Rossiter has the heart of a lion. Max is tenacious on the ball, but with a pen? Could Curry’s glorious flurry on the court translate into the sort of striking rhetorical flourishes surely contained in what McKillop dubbed a manifesto? Civi? No.

The beauty of this gesture is that it reflects a group of intensely focused young men whose collective zeal for self-improvement has transcended the student-teacher paradigm. Better put, these players have taken the initiative. They have risen to all the calls and now, they have effectively raised their own bar. Perhaps the bit of the report that struck me most was the sound bite of freshman walk-on Will Reigel. Reigel has tallied a total of eight minutes on the floor in his collegiate career, yet his words evince the same drive and focus as those of his teammates. And that makes sense, because the vision is a synergistic one, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

“Our team unity sets us apart from other schools and other teams. We’ve got a motto, trust commitment care, and we live by it, by the code. And treat each other with all three of those things all the time, and it’s really big for us.”

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Dec. 5, 2008

On 16point8.blogspot.com:

"Stephen has the ability to be one of the best basketball players ever to put on a Davidson jersey." -- Davidson coach Bob McKillop on Stephen Curry in September 2006

"I think he has a chance to be one of the best players ever to put on a Flames jersey." -- Liberty coach Ritchie McKay on Seth Curry in November 2008

Stephen Curry.

Seth Curry.

Dell's boys.

Everyone knows the story of Stephen by now. Skinny kid in ACC country. No big-time offers. Now look: from a good mid-major get to Southern Conference star to first-team All-American. One of THE faces of all of college hoops. The questions, of course, all along the way: What didn't the big coaches see? What did they MISS?

Well, it's still early, but Seth had 23 points in the first college game he played, he had 26 in Liberty's upset over VIRGINIA, he had 21 in a double-overtime win over William & Mary...

Is it happening AGAIN?

This is the new wrinkle in the Stephen Curry story. It's not just Stephen anymore. Seth, too, now. I don't want to get all crazy here, and oversell, and overshoot, but I can't help but think that within the story of these two brothers -- the story of this FAMILY -- are some of the most compelling reasons we watch sports.

We want to know what makes some people succeed and others fail. We want to know what makes some of us overachieve when most of us don't. And we want in the worst way to believe in the things we can't scout, or measure, or even explain.

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Main Street

Dec. 3, 2008

On 16point8.blogspot.com:

For two decades Bob McKillop worked to build Davidson basketball into a program that matters and is respected and is part of college basketball’s national conversation. He did that. He did it, always, with a team-first philosophy, every player playing his role, one five beats five ones, BALANCE.

The irony heading into this year, then, was that it ultimately took the emergence of one brilliant kid.

It doesn’t play that way in McKillop’s head, and not in Stephen’s head, either, and not anywhere in that little locker room in Belk, and it shouldn’t.

But being a part of the national conversation means you lose a good deal of control over who tells your story and how.

And it felt, sort of, at least to me, like some kind of line had been crossed, or was starting to be crossed, with Stephen’s 44-point game in the loss at Oklahoma. The one-man-team talk was getting louder.

Stephen is the show.

He is.

He’s a good show even on a bad night. On most nights he’s a great show. And on transcendent nights? Davidson wins tournament games.

The hope, though, is that it never turns into show for the sake of show, at the expense of sport. That it doesn’t go sideshow or freak show. It’s the difference between a concert and the circus.

So.

The zero game.

What it did, in retrospect, was offer a clear answer to anybody who had started to wonder: Points or wins?

Show or sport?

Concert or circus?

Here’s what Jimmy Patsos ended up doing: He helped shift the national narrative back to where McKillop and Stephen and the team and the program and really the college as a whole had wanted it to stay all along.

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SuperCats

Nov. 26, 2008

Kruse on 16point8.blogspot.com:

Loyola of Maryland wasn't going to beat Davidson Tuesday night, probably not, almost certainly not, so why not try something really, REALLY different? What was there to lose?

Some might say a lot.

Pride.

Dignity.

Reputation.

Respect from the players on your team.

Folks are talking about this all over the place today. Most of them are using words like "dumb" and "ridiculous" and phrases like "an embarrassment to his profession" and "continues to lose his mind."

For now, from here, two thoughts:

1. It's a coach's Hippocratic Oath of sorts to prepare his players, and to give those players a chance, the very best possible chance, to compete and to win. That is not what happened here. Jimmy Patsos did not do that. Maybe he thought at some point, the day before the game, the morning of the game, at the start of the game, that this was in fact his team's best chance to win -- that's totally possible -- but he HAD to realize by at least halftime that it wasn't working. Davidson finished the half on a 35-8 run. Not working.

2. Seasons and the games that add up to seasons are all about adjustments. One team does this, the other team does that, the one team does something different, the other team tries to counter, and so on and so on. It never stops. To do one thing, and only one thing, for a full 40 minutes -- no matter what that thing is -- is a pretty good way to lose. I once was having beers with an attorney whose cases I used to write a good bit about and I asked him what made somebody good in his line of work. A malleable mind, he said. A good thinker is a flexible thinker. Loyola was losing 39-17 at the break. It got worse from there: 46-22, 52-24, 60-31, 71-38. And STILL: two men face-guarding Stephen standing in the corner. Rigidity is stupidity.

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Nov. 25, 2008

My journal from England:

Get this --

Steph didn't score.

And we won by 30.

WAHOOO!

Due to the fact that LMD's Coach Jimmy Patsos decided to double team Steph into a corner the whole game. But the legend grew even more because Steph didn't force anything -- he only attempted 3 shots and then distracted his guards so Andrew could get 20 pts, BBarr 18, Will 13, AARON BOND 11, Steve 6, Brendan 6, Ben 4...

One-man team? Who the hell are you talking about?

Patsos is an idiot though -- he kept up the strategy when it obviously wasn't working -- Bob was mad, Kilgo was mad, the fans were mad -- not because Steph didn't score (I think it's AWESOME that Steph didn't score. It's a great confidence booster for everyone) but because Patsos embarrassed his players, his school, and himself. After the game he said -- "What are they gonna remember -- that we held Curry scoreless or that we lost by 30?"

Uhhhh... we'll remember that you were a jerk so we pounded you and showed the talent of other guys besides Curry and also showed his graceful team spirit, therefore reinforcing how special we are?

I skyped with Patty the whole time and with Dad and Mason the 2nd half and I had a running commentary for Joe.

ONLY 2 MORE GAMES UNTIL I AM THERE!!!!!

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Nov. 24, 2008

Lauren Biggers on The View From Press Row:

If you were there, you're gonna wanna remember this one. "Put it in your memory bank" along with Gonzaga, Greensboro and Elon, but for the most opposite of reasons.

0-3, three fouls.

The rest of the band:

Lovedale: 8-for-14, 20 points, 10 boards.

The WL: 6-for-12 (all treys!), 18 points.

Bond, Aaron Bond: 4-for-5, 11 points, nine minutes.

Will Archambault: 5-for-9, 13 points, four assists.

SteVe: six points, six boards, six assists.

And afterwards, I turned over most of my post-game duties to assistant SID Matt Harris to attend press conferences. Standing in the classroom listening to the Band Leader, there's a tap on the window, and there's the Cheese, making faces while waiting his turn.

I'm sure there's some disappointment -- scorers like to score after all -- but you wouldn't know. In the press conference there is laughter and joking, as he concedes to "not knowing what position" he was playing and having "the best view in Belk Arena tonight."

And so it went, and in the greatest of dramatic twists, the one seeking the spotlight was upstaged by the one who can't avoid it.

Without scoring a point.

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Sink on DavidsonCats

After Winthrop:

We are blessed. We are Witnesses. Not just to the greatness of one player, but to a basketball team that we dreamed of when we were children. One that we never truly thought we'd see at Davidson. Before last season, I told my daughters to savor every bit of the season because it might be the best Davidson team they'd see in their lifetimes. I was wrong. We may not make another magical run to the Elite Eight. But we have the lightning in the bottle, the lid is secured, and we get to watch the electricity crackle several times a week.

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Two numbers

Still more from Kruse on Nov. 22, 2008:

First time for me last night in the new and improved Belk Arena with the Seats That Stephen Built. Strange, but strange in a great way, for those of us who were there for Monday night SoCon games against, say, East Tennessee State, with attendance checking in at an (exaggerated) 1,128 or something like that. Stating the obvious but it really is an amazing thing going on right now on our campus and in our village.

Two numbers:

30.

5,223.

Comments?

Nov. 22, 2008 continued

More from 16point8:

So much talk obviously about Stephen at the point and not the two, going into the season, still now. I don't know. 30 points, 13 assists, three turnovers: That pretty much works for me. It's Steve Nash-y. Steve Nash in his prime-y. I've thought for months and months, spring, summer, fall, now with a handful for games so far in this new season, that one of the very few not good things about Stephen at the point is that Stephen is not also at the two. That's not a knock on Bryant or Will -- more just an acknowledgment that Stephen at the two was an extraordinary thing. But Stephen at the point? Other than the fact that he can't play two positions at once... what's not to love? Another thing to consider: John Akers of Basketball Times leaned over on press row last night and made the point that Stephen is shooting a lot of free throws, more than last year, maybe a lot more -- although I'd rather not go look up numbers right now -- and that's because (duh) the ball's in his hands more and he's exceptionally difficult to guard. That's going to be especially true in games against Southern Conference teams. Or teams like Winthrop. How do you score 30 points on 16 shots? One way: You take 10 free throws and make nine of them.

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