Islamorada, Fla.

This made me smile

The Chron:

When Curry was asked whether he or Ellis would defend bigger shooting guards, such as 6-foot-6, 220-pound Kobe Bryant, he said, “The whole team will guard him.”

The whole team will guard him. You can take the kid out of Davidson but you can’t take the Davidson out of the kid.

The real world

Ann Killion at SI.com:

Stephen Curry is about as fresh-faced as a NBA rookie can be.

The 21-year old is soft-spoken and thoughtful. His lone tattoo, discreetly inked on the inside of his left wrist, is the motto of Davidson, the small college he guided to the Elite Eight in 2008. “T.C.C.”: Trust, Commitment, Care.

Curry might want to look into laser tattoo removal because he’s a Warrior now. And “Trust, Commitment, Care” is most certainly not in the Warriors’ vocabulary.

Kawakami at the Merc. Chron update.

The Stephen stopper

Tears his ACL. Out for the season. From back in March: Antwaine Wiggins made Stephen work hard, and struggle, and that was not a surprise. He’s done it before.

Should be ... interesting

Stephen and Monta Ellis playing in the same backcourt? Ellis Monday at Warriors media day: “I can’t envision that. Us together, no. I can’t. I just can’t. I just can’t.” Also: “I just want to win, and we’re not going to win that way.” More from the Merc.

Oct. 16 at Belk

Well this is a first.

Morganton, N.C.

Friday afternoon at Belk

1. “Toughen up!”

“Knucklehead!”

“Jesus Christmas!”

“You caught it and got soft instead of catching it and busting his face!”

What’s that sound like? Sounds like a Bob McKillop-led individual workout here on campus on a late September afternoon. Friday's group was Bryant, Will, JP, AJ, Ben and Brendan.

2. JP’s turned more man since the last time I saw him. He’s not that much shorter than Will. He doesn’t move cool, he moves effective, and his ball wants to go in. And I heard from the coaches a version of something they always said about Stephen: What JP’s told, JP picks up quick.

3. Ben’s a V with a tan and a British accent.

4. No Bob McKillop team at Davidson, ever, has had a pair of post players who are built the way Ben and Frank are built.

5. Where are all those points going to come from? No one place. But Will is going to score a bunch this year. Bryant on Will right now: “Best I’ve ever seen him play.”

6. McKillop: “Come here. Look at Steve’s body.”

7. After the whole team worked out on the red rack behind Baker, McKillop called his guys together and told them that nobody’s talking about them right now, and nobody’s expecting anything of them, and nobody’s picking them to win anything.

“And that’s fine,” he said.

8. I asked Steve about Stephen.

“Who?” he said, then grinned.

9. Bryant: “The past three years, so much of our offense revolved around Stephen. If something was going wrong, we looked to Stephen.

“It’s just us now.”

It’s just us now.

It’s Just Us Now.

Another coaches clinic

McKillop, speaking next Sunday, in Blairstown, N.J. Pocono Record.

Stephen out in Oakland

Marc Spears:

Stephen Curry knows Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson is famously tough on rookies. Curry also knows his college exploits will only make him a target for NBA veterans hungry to beat up on a wispy 21-year-old. And, yes, he understands that adjusting to life in the league far away from the only home he’s ever known carries its own pressure.

But Stephen Curry also doesn’t care.

“I think I will be Rookie of the Year,” he said. “I have that kind of confidence in myself. … I’m not afraid to say it.”

Warriors news: Chron. Merc.

Cats on Main

Grand opening Saturday morning at 10.

The ‘Cats on Main building at 131 N. Main Street was constructed in 1914 and operated for many years as White's Drug Store. In 1965, it became Parks Rexall Drug Store. The building was purchased by Tom Clark in 1984, and for the past 25 years, the building served as a retail outlet and museum for collectible figurines sold by Cairn Studios. The offerings included gnomes crafted by building owner and sculptor Tom Clark, a Davidson College religion professor from 1958 to 1985.

And I’ll be in town. That worked well. DavidsonNews.net: big wooden scissors.

All-decade

In all of college basketball, for the 2000s, according to the Sporting News. First team: Williams, Nelson, Durant, Noah, Hansbrough. Second team: Wade, Battier, Griffin, Okafor, Curry. Observer. Davidson.

Athlon is out

They say:

LAC (Life after Curry) begins for the Wildcats, but it might not be so bad. Bob McKillop consistently had Davidson in the mix for the league title before Stephen Curry ever set foot on campus. The Wildcats will be big inside with Ben Allison, Frank Ben-Eze and Steve Rossiter. The key will be finding a go-to scorer and someone to knock down perimeter jumpers. Bryant Barr could be the answer to both needs.

Davidson is picked second in the South division behind Charleston. No Wildcats on the five-man all-league team. Look at the bottom of the picture of C of C’s Andrew Goudelock, the player of the year pick, and who do you see in the stands? Hello there, Lee Sargent.

Schedule snippet

Appalachian: The Mountaineers will tip off the Southern Conference regular season broadcast slate on January 9 at Davidson in the first of eight regionally televised games.

Andy calls Bob

McKillop: “We learned we’re going to have to have an equal opportunity offense. We can’t have guys stand around waiting for Steph to shoot it. They all have to swing the bat.”

Kuhlman a rookie to watch

Robbi at the N&O:

No one can fill the void of Stephen Curry, but the 6-3 combo guard should steadily earn more and more minutes as a back-up ballhandler and perimeter shooter.

Here I’ll offer a reminder of one Dave Telep. Telep has a good eye. He was the first recruiting analyst who looked at a 16-year-old Chris Paul and said not “Too small” but rather “Watch out.” On Stephen? He kinda had an inkling. And on Kuhlman? “He has it. The mysterious it.”

Those season preview mags

Lindy’s says Davidson will finish third in the South division of the Southern Conference. It says Rossiter will be second-team all-league. It says Jake Cohen will be the league’s top rookie.

Ken Cross writes:

Selfishly, the college hoops world, outside of the Wildcats’ SoCon foes, wanted to see Stephen Curry return for his senior season. Although Curry’s decision propelled him to the NBA, coach Bob McKillop has a nucleus that should once again place the Wildcats in the thick of the league race.

The Elon profile, meanwhile, says Matt Matheny starts as a head coach after learning the craft for a decade and a half “in the highly successful Davidson program.”

What’s all this mean? It means I spent $6.99 on a magazine at my Publix.

In the Czech Republic

Boris: Boris Meno, a Davidson graduate and former teammate of Golden State Warriors 2009 First Round Draft Pick Stephen Curry, will suit up for Basketbol Brno this season. Meno spent most of last season with BK Kondori Liberec.

Dec. 12 in Seattle

Gonzaga. Tickets.

The Citadel schedule

Conroy: “Starting the Southern Conference schedule off at home with the regular season champs will be exciting for players, fans and the Cadets.”

DavidsonPhotos.com

Total time suck. But in a good way.

Tweeting from the village

Stephen: Back at davidson watching my boys workout. So weird being on this side of the action. Bryant: Chillin with @stephencurry30 on campus...weird having him back for a day.

Stephen and Chris

The Times-Pic:

With enormous expectations to start this upcoming season as a rookie with the Golden State Warriors, Stephen Curry sought out Paul for help this summer. They worked out together this past week at the Alario Center.

Curry, the son of former Charlotte Hornets guard Dell Curry, led the nation in scoring with a 28.6 average at Davidson last season. He was the seventh overall pick in June’s draft by the Warriors.

“To come in and learn from an All-Star and Olympic gold-medal winner is pretty special,” Curry said. “You see how hard he works, and I picked up things and competed with him one-on-one. I just feel like it’s a head start for me to start my career off right.”

Curry likely will play point guard, although he played shooting guard for two seasons at Davidson.

“I’ve known Stephen for awhile,” Paul said. “He grew up in Charlotte, and I was down in Winston-Salem. We’ve been working out all summer, and I think he’s as prepared for his rookie season as he can be.”

It’s worth noting that the kid from Clemmons is best buds with LeBron.

Some kid in Minnesota

After committing to Long Beach State: “They see me as another Stephen Curry.”

National Hoops Report

Justin Young on Jordan Downing:

Davidson landed Jordan Downing early last month and suffice it to say, his commitment should prove to be a big deal. The 6-foot-5 guard was the most consistent player on the North Carolina 2010 team in a back-and-forth battle to close out the day. He was heady, gutsy, effective and very good in this game. Looks like another under-the-radar player for Bob McKillop & Company.

Chris Paul

On Twitter: Had a great workout 2day wit @stephencurry30 ...

‘Coaching heavyweights’

Later this month in West Virginia: Chaney, Tarkanian, Dixon ... McKillop.

Claire says: Sounds familiar

Melanie Oudin at the U.S. Open:

“I don’t actually mean to lose the first set,” she insisted. “Sometimes, I just start off slowly. Maybe I’m a little nervous. Today, my timing was off a little. But I just totally forgot about it, started off the second set like it was a new match, and I started playing better.”

Oudin won this match without serving a single ace, another indication she is not blowing anybody away with sheer power. Instead, it’s footwork, technique, precision. Mostly, though, she is thriving in pressure situations that make so many others in the sport shrink away.

“You don’t know if she’s winning or losing,” said her father, John. “She doesn’t seem nervous out there -- and I don’t know where that came from.”

Maybe it’s the shoes. They have the word “Believe” stamped on them, and it’s easy to see how those Oudin models could become top sellers in tennis shops across America soon.

Will at the rim

A couple games

The schedule filling in: Nov. 28 against Rhode Island; Dec. 30 against Massachusetts.

Stephen projections

Tony Mejia at Pro Basketball News: ... the best scenario for the Davidson (guard) is carving out a niche similar to Jason Terry and Ben Gordon.

Talking Panthers

McKillop on the news Panthers president’s time as the head of the SoCon: “Danny was a consensus builder. He dealt with a lot of different schools -- state schools, private schools, recent members of the conference and schools that had been in it for 60 years. And he was often able to build some type of consensus despite dealing with a lot of significant differences between the schools.”

Confident, and nervous

Langston:

Seven years ago, I met Stephen Curry for the first time. He was 14 and skinny, about 5-foot-8. He told me that one day he was going to play in the NBA.

I wasn’t sure, at the time, he’d be a good high school player.

Last week, I visited him at Time Warner Cable Arena where Curry, about to make good on his NBA dream, was working out with a diabolical trainer, who made him run sprint after sprint, dribble backward and forward, then run three quarters of the court and make 10 NBA-range 3-point shots in a row. Of course, if you miss, you start over.

“This is what it takes,” said Curry, a lottery pick by the Golden State Warriors this summer. “You’ve got to go to training camp at the top of your game and not use it to get in shape.”

Curry, now 6-3 and towering over me, is starting to look like a guy who’s spending extra time in the weight room. He talks confidently about averaging 20 points per game as a rookie. Curry, who recently signed a Nike shoe and apparel deal, speaks confidently of a goal to be NBA Rookie of the Year. But he’s also nervous about leaving home.

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