Tonight

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.