March 7, 2009

16point8.blogspot.com:

On most days in the Southern Conference, not all days, but most days, the difference between Davidson and the other 11 teams in the league is Stephen. Today Andrew was huge, huge, huge, especially in the middle and late parts of the first half when Stephen was on the bench with two fouls, but even so… It seems silly even writing this at this point, ever, in particular in March – I mean, we all know this, right? – but today, for whatever reason, it just jumped off the page:

The ball in the hands of No. 30 is a scoring opportunity.

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Feb. 28, 2009: Claire

From my journal:

The game was good — we’re finally back on track! David said, “All right boys, I want 100!” Nope, but still so nice to get a win at home. Lord, we badly needed that. And the whole time I was just very aware that it was my last game in Belk until SENIOR YEAR. WHAT? The comfort and contentedness I feel in that place — that back row of the endzone — is indescribable. Every time I’m there I know it is exactly where I am supposed to be.

It’s neat because the same ticket-checking guy has been there the last several games and so we’ve started talking to him more and he’s started reacting more to the game and it’s been cool to see that take place. And the pep band is wonderful — all of the songs they play are so evocative for me and it just puts me in the moment.

Towards the end of the game CIVI! came in — a guy in the bleachers had been holding up a sign that said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY CIVI” so someone in the row in front us passed along the message — “Guys, when Civi goes in we’re gonna sing happy birthday!” So we giggled and whispered and waited for our cue – probably from D Block? — and suddenly the entire arena burst our singing — as the boys were playing —

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR CIVI!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

It was so wonderful and completely epitomizes what this place is about, hype and ESPN be damned — we care about them. Who sings “Happy birthday” to their beloved bench warmer during a game? Seriously.

And then as soon as the game ended and they shook hands, McKillop grabbed the microphone — “Tonight is the last time that three of our players will be in front of their peers at Belk Arena …” and Andrew, Max, and Civi unclumped themselves from the clump in the middle of the court and grinned and waved while we screamed and McKillop introduced them. Those three, I realize now thinking back, have always been so happy. They are always smiling, and they play so hard all the time.

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Feb. 26, 2009

Lauren on The View From Press Row:

No one on the corner has swagger like us. Again.

Collective exhale.

This is how Wildcat nation is feeling after the Davidson men’s team’s 70-49 win over UNC Greensboro Wednesday night at Belk Arena.

Around here, things have been just a little off lately. After the loss to the College of Charleston Feb. 7, we weren’t even sure how to run the post-game. You see, the winning team goes first. And well, suddenly, that was not the Wildcats.

I put down my thoughts after that loss, and then suddenly, it’s been four games since. Some of that is due to the fact, sure, that’s it’s easier for me not to write when it isn’t all roses and kittens around Belk Arena, but mostly it’s due to the fact that it’s officially baseball season at Wilson Field. (Four games this weekend if you need to get your fix.)

I really meant to write and share my thoughts after the four games in between Charleston and last night, but life happened.

I made the trip to Furman, but ended up writing the game story. And then there was that thing with the ankle heard round the world. Though I will tell you that my Valentine’s Day dinner at Chick-fil-A with SID Marc Gignac, Davidson play-by-play extraordinaire John Kilgo, and color guy Kenny Loggins was pretty special. (Complete with a cappella singers in tuxedos, free cheesecake and carnations.)

And what can I say about The Citadel game? If you are looking to read negative reviews, sorry, you just won’t find them here. That’s just not what I do. The players and coaches are friends and colleagues, and for all, I have deep respect. Except when I lose in darts. And anyways, that’s what the Internet is for.

And as I was glancing over the stats and making the post-game books Saturday after the Butler game, I was thinking about six losses. And how many teams in the country would love to have six losses. And how I could easily name the six, but not more than a handful of the 23 wins.

And last night … Last night just felt right. Felt familiar. Didn’t it?

The Joker ended up with 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in 26 minutes.

There were highlight-reel worthy dunks from Frank Ben-EASY (the people love some Frank Ben-EASY, eh?) and the Big Cat, fan favorites Can Civi (happy birthday from the D-Block … A-maz-ing.) and Will Reigel making steals and layups.

And that NASTY four-point play.

But mostly, there was a win.

And there was Swagger. Again.

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Feb. 23, 2009

William on DavidsonCats.com: Big Cat made one drive in particular that had a swiftness and elegance to it that made my day worth the trouble if that was the only thing I saw. I also enjoyed the casual way Will threw in some threes. Steph, for all his troubles, also made a couple of drives that were helpful reminders of his talent level.

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.”

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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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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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More from March 24, 2008

Stan Brown on DavidsonCats.com:

Our players are great kids. I know that isn’t news, but I thought I’d share this story.

When I decided to try to get tickets for Raleigh on line, I asked my kids if they wanted to go. About a 400-mile drive, watch game, drive back. We’d done Duke (270) and Chattanooga (100 and midnight when we got home) and the Furman game at Davidson (255) as day trips this year.

Older son, Madison (14), had just gotten back from a school bus trip to NYC. He had no interest in any more miles for a while. No. 2 son was in. Wife insisted that we get a hotel room and drive over Thursday evening rather than leave in the middle of the night.

As we were saying our goodbyes on Thursday, No. 1 son says “Hey, Dad, tell Thomas Sander I said hi.” I asked him if he thought Thomas would know who he was. “Sure, I’m the kid in the Davidson shirt who always wore the Tennessee Vol hat. He’ll know me.”

Hmmmmmmmmm.

We had waited in the lobby after the Duke game, so my boys could see the players and No. 2 son could get some autographs. Thomas was one of the first players to come out. After he had spoken to his folks, we approached him. He was so nice to my sons. They really liked him. They couldn’t believe how tall he is. He thanked us for coming to support the team. Class kid. We chatted briefly about his AAU teammate from Cincy, UT player Ryan Childress, who was William's camp counselor last summer (who’d said to say hi to Sander when we went to see Davidson play).

After the game at Chattanooga, we waited down on the floor for the players to come out after showering and changing. A couple players came back to the bench area on the floor, but not many. I realized that most of the guys didn’t have any family to check with and had likely headed straight for the bus from the locker room.

We hustled out through the tunnel and found the bus almost full. Coach McKillop was still standing outside it. We approached him and I asked if he would autograph William’s shirt. He did and asked if William had Steph’s. No? He asked one of the managers to check and see if Steph was already on the bus. He was. Why don’t you go in the bus and get Steph’s? William was a little nervous, but big brother encouraged him and said he’d go with him. The boys spent a few minutes in the back of the bus talking with the players and getting some autographs on William's shirt (I was bending poor Matt Matheny’s ear up front).

When we got in the car, it was a series of “Andrew Lovedale is really nice.” “Is Ben Allison a good player? I talked with him, where is he from? He’s nice. He sounds different.” “Steph Curry is nice.” And on and on.

As we were driving home, Madison asked why we haven’t taken a road trip to a game at Davidson. So we did the Furman game. Afterward, we saw Aaron Bond near the cafeteria and had a nice chat. We stopped by the Brick House. Some of the players were there, including Sander. We spoke to him briefly. I bent poor Matt’s ear some more and we left for home.

And based on that limited experience, my elder son was sure that Thomas would remember him (and that he was my son).

I tried to explain to him that an NCAA tourney game might be a little different from a SoCon game. With press interviews and another game following, we wouldn't be hanging out around the court waiting for the players to come out from the locker room. And even if we were able to see him and as nice as Thomas was to him, we really shouldn't expect him to remember all the kids who ask him for autographs or shake his hand.

Madison just shrugged. Thomas was a great person and very nice. He’d remember the tall 14-year-old with the UT hat. He was sure of it.

William and I didn’t see any of the players on our Raleigh excursion Friday. But I was struck by the fact that our players in general, and Thomas specifically, had made such an impression on my boys that they felt like the Davidson players were their friends.

The guys in red and black are special people.

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Aftermath

Me in an email -- to myself.

Subject: just breathe.

I cannot believe that I am writing to tell you this after the most insane basketball game ever. I cannot believe I am writing to tell you that about 20 minutes ago, we did it.

WE DID IT.

WE BEAT GEORGETOWN.

HOLY SHIT.

WE WERE DOWN 17 IN THE FREAKIN SECOND HALF.

AND SOMEHOW, WE DID IT.

Steph wasn't hitting much of anything, Thomas, Andrew and Steph had over 3 fouls, the Hoyas are damn HUGE and hit 3s like crazy and -- WHO COMES BACK FROM 17 POINTS DOWN IN THE SECOND HALF OF A NCAA BASKETBALL GAME????!!!!!

Dad and I were yelling, I got text message after text message:

Anna: Oh. My. God.

Rachel: Ahhh! Go cats!!

And suddenly we were up 3 with 2 minutes and more stuff happened that I can't even tell you right now because I just don't even know, and they fouled Steph AGAIN! And Dad was tsking because two minutes is a long time in a basketball game but he kept shooting them and we held our damn defense and I still can't quite believe this happened. And with 9 seconds we had it and Elizabeth called and I answered the phone and we shrieked without actually talking for a full minute, watching OUR FREAKING BOYS GRIN AND SMILE AND DANCE AROUND AND THROW THEIR ARMS AROUND EACH OTHER AND HOLY SHIT WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joe: oh my god

And on the davidsoncats board people are going beserk, and other SoCon fans are sending their congratulations, and Will Bryan said he nearly freaked out on press row and Lauren Biggers is going to have one hell of a blog to write, and the front page of SI.com has a picture of Steph POINTING UP AT GOD LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES AND OH MY DEAR LORD I CANNOT FREAKIN BELIEVE THIS!!!!!

Everyone's facebook statuses are changing and more and more texts and phone calls and articles and this is not just a one-game thing anymore. This is national. This is IT. This is a fairly unathletic #10 beating a huge, went-to-the-final-4 last year #2 who was up for almost the entirety of the game. This is unspeakable, indescribable, hands down my life is made.

When I talked to Em and Elizabeth we kept repeating "I love our school. Our school is awesome."

More will come later. Oh my god. This is one of the best days ever.

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March 23, 2008

Me:

Andrew rips into the rebound and I'm screaming, all I know is that I'm screaming deep in my gut and I'm moving, past the television that I can't hear anymore, leaping towards my father, wringing him out with a hug still yelling and he's yelling too and I wrench away to the other end of the basement body shaking palms sweaty and all I can do is keep pushing my heart through my mouth because I will die if I stop screaming because because -- because --

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March 22, 2008

Adam Stockstill on Cats.com:

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Curry. No, my fair cousin:
If we are marked to die, we are enow
To do our Wildcat Nation loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for just a first round win,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It ernes me not if men my Curry jersey wear;
Such outward things well not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet a trip to San Antonio,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from Davidson, North Carolina;
God's peace, I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more long range three.
Rather proclaim it presently through my host at the RBC Center,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let the Hoyas depart. His passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into John Thompson's purse:
We would not die in Georgetown's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the Feast of Curry:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Curry.
He that shall see this day and live t'old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his Tar Heel neighbours,
And say "Tomorrow is Saint Curry's Day":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars
And say "These wounds I had on Curry's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in Billy Packer's mouth as household words
J-Rich the Warrior, Sander the General,
Lovedale the Nigerian Nightmare, Gosselin and Archambault,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Curry's Curriness shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we Lunatic Fringe, we band of Wildcat;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my Wildcat brother, be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in Davidson now abed
Shall they think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Curry's day.

Comments?

March 21, 2008

From Raleigh, on Cats.com, after Gonzaga:

Dear America,

It was, up until now, a hopeful but hypothetical conversation. We’ve had it over beers in bars. We’ve had it on cell phones from Boston to San Francisco, from New York to Atlanta, from Charlotte to Tampa. We’ve had it in the fall and in the winter, and in the spring and summer, too. We’ve had it for years.

What if?

What if we won in the tournament?

It’s SUCH a good story, we said to each other -- little school, big dreams, cute town, smart kids. People, we kept saying, WANT to tell this story. They just needed a reason. They needed us to win.

This tournament is a series of finite 40-minute windows of opportunity. Seize one and you earn another. Win and you get another two days of news cycle. Win and you get to tell your story.

You have to understand something about us and our school. I don’t know if it’s Southern gentility or Presbyterian humility, but we’ve always been institutionally reluctant to say, Hey, look, look at us. It’s just not what we’ve done and so it’s not what we do.

But we want so badly for people to know.

So we’ve looked to Bob McKillop and his basketball team.

He went 4-24 in his first season at Davidson. That was 19 years ago. He has taken us from the Southern Conference tournament to the NIT to the NCAAs and now to a win in the NCAAs. He built this. He didn’t leave us when he could have. He has raised his family in a house across the street from campus. His oldest son played for him. His youngest son plays for him now. His daughter went to Davidson and is engaged to a Davidson man. He tears up when he talks about this.

His team went to the NIT in ’94.

His team lost in the conference finals in ’96 after going undefeated in league play. Another NIT. In ’98, a conference tournament title, a trip to the NCAAs. It seems so, so long ago, but not really, and we were giddy. That felt like this feels. Really it did.

Finally.

There were trips back, in ’02, in ’06, in ’07.

Close, close, close. But never that win.

Now THIS.

Make no mistake: We beat a good team today. This was not about the bounces or the breaks. No. We beat a really good team that played really well because WE played really well.

Because we got a ballsy gutsy late three from Max.

Because we got 13 rebounds from Andrew.

Because we got two huge buckets late from Rossiter.

Because we got nine assists and 15 points from Jason.

And also, of course, because we got 40 from Steph. Not just any 40. An 8-for-10-from-three 40. A 14-for-22 40. A five-steals 40. A first-round-record-setting-40. A forever 40.

But this whole thing is less about how it happened and more about what it means. After the game, Joey Beeler, the men’s basketball media relations guy, was looking frazzled. His life just got crazy. He said his phone started going off right as the buzzer sounded. Let it be told. We are one of the smallest schools in Division I.

We are 1,700 students in Davidson, N.C., just north of Charlotte, that’s it, all undergrad.

We are NOT Davidson University.

We are ranked ninth in the U.S. News and World Report and 23rd in the AP poll.

We keep in touch with our professors after we graduate.

We watch basketball games on grainy Web video from wherever we live.

A couple weeks ago, at the Southern Conference tournament championship game, there was a man with a sign, and the sign said:

YOU

MAKE

US

PROUD

And they do, and in a way that’s much, much more intimate than most other Division I program, and certainly most other programs that are playing this weekend for a spot in the Sweet 16. This program, our program, is now big enough to matter but still small enough to touch.

After the game on Friday, in the locker room, there were the lights, the mics, the pens and the pads, the bigness, and there was Steph, surrounded by a scrum three- and four-deep, saying what he said, tired, happy, the faintest of facial hair, as always, on his chin and his upper lip.

We saw in the peach-fuzzed face of this pretty kid from Charlotte the potential of what happened today.

The hypothetical is no longer hypothetical.

He helped make our conversation real.

Sincerely,

Michael Kruse

Davidson College

Class of 2000

Comments?

Waiting for tip

In North Charleston.

Feb. 13, 2008 Part III

Will Bryan:

The stars were aligned for Davidson to lose tonight. Greensboro had been underperforming... Davidson had been blowing people out... Sander was on the bench. The Spartans scorched the nets shooting 9-12 from three in the first half. Their intensity and home crowd helped ignite a first half blitz that found Greensboro sitting right below their average offensive output of the last week: at halftime. But Davidson won by five. Their defiance of the basketball gods tonight was extraordinary to say the least.

The heart of this team literally came spilling out on the court tonight. Richards' eyebrow was split open in an ugly way, bleeding all over everything... yet he came back to make the game-winning drive and free throw. Max Paulhus Gosselin recovered from endless "air ball" jeering to make the game-saving steal leading to Richards' drive. Andrew Lovedale overcame foul trouble to bring down the rebound with a scream after Greensboro's late attempt to tie the game. Thomas Sander did not let his sidelining keep him from supporting the team... he was the first one on the court at every timeout and was never quiet on the sidelines even when the Wildcats trailed big. And then, of course, there was Stephen Curry.

Davidson's attitude in the second half was definitely one of a team finally kicking it into overdrive. The several hundred fans in attendance got into a shouting match with Spartan supporters while Davidson was not unwilling to show a ton of emotion on the court. This was probably the first time I have seen Davidson win a game and have the team run out to celebrate in a very long time. It felt like a game one more time.

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