Bilas on March

On upsets: “Davidson was not as good as a lot of people. They weren’t as good as Georgetown, but Georgetown lost to them.”

Davidson 74, Georgetown 70

Claire

In her journal after Georgetown: They’re not dreams anymore.

Still don’t know how

Why was I tearing up?

Landry after Georgetown: ... I did not know if I could articulate my thoughts to anyone. Luckily, I was sitting next to my former teammate and roommate, Ali Ton, and when I saw the emotion on his face, I knew that he did not need an explanation. When I left my seat and went out into the hallways of the RBC Center and saw the students and fans cheering, high-fiving, chest-bumping, and singing the fight song, I again realized that no explanation was necessary. The Davidson people understood it: against long odds our team accomplished a near miracle.

Nothing easy

Easter Sunday in Raleigh

In the St. Pete Times:

The drive back from the games in Raleigh ended with a police escort into town past toilet-papered trees. The lights of the team bus swung toward Belk Arena and landed on 500 cheering fans. The first hug Richards got was from his history thesis adviser.

At the Brickhouse, with satellite trucks outside, the crowd hollered and yelled every time the Davidson highlights played on ESPN. Then came the clip of Curry in the postgame news conference. The people looked up at his face and the place went hush.

“You should’ve heard all the horns honking,” she told me, “here in this little town.”

The posters for the Project

By Alan Hyder ’99: Gonzaga, Georgetown, Wisconsin, Kansas.

Best case?

Austin Bell sent me an e-mail tonight on tournament eve reminding me what Pat Forde wrote about Davidson in his annual best case/worst case piece heading into the first round two years back.

Best Case: Stephen Curry goes thermonuclear shooting the ball, averages 30 ppg and leads the Wildcats to the regional finals, running their winning streak to 26 on the way. Davidson shoots Gonzaga out of the gym, somehow figures out how to guard Roy Hibbert in the second round, grinds past Wisconsin in the Sweet 16 and finally succumbs to Kansas in the Elite Eight. Nation appreciates the work of point guard Jason Richards, who leads the country in assists, and the Wildcats’ brute refusal to beat themselves. Bob McKillop’s hair is perfect.

I e-mailed Austin: Scary, right?

Austin e-mailed me: Extremely. I think it’s interesting to think about the fact that this is the “best case” like the shot couldn’t have gone down, you know?

I e-mailed Austin: That is interesting. Because if that shot had been -- what? -- a foot and a half to the right, March 2008 for Davidson would’ve become April 2008, and better than the best-case scenario.

7th-best game of the decade

Davidson-Georgetown: “I forget what timeout it was, but we were down 16 and Coach is asking us if we’re having fun,” Davidson guard Jason Richards would later tell reporters. “We got to smiling a little bit ... and this kid started getting on fire again, like he did the other day, and when that happens it’s tough to stop him.”

Favorite memory of the decade

Forde:

Watching Stephen Curry shoot the ball in the 2008 NCAA tournament is on the top of my list. There’s nothing prettier than a great shooter at the peak of his game during the heat of March, and Curry willed a very laudable Davidson team to go farther than its talent had any right to justify. What a show he put on.

Watch.

Reading the game notes

Leftover from Gonzaga: The last team to shoot 60 percent or better against Davidson was Georgetown in the ‘Cats’ 74-70 victory in the 2008 NCAA Tournament. Choice factoid.

No. 10 upset of the decade

Over Georgetown: Stephen Curry wasn’t yet a household name when he led Davidson to a wild, 74-70 win over a Hoyas team that was expected to contend for a second straight Final Four appearance. The Wildcats were down by as many as 17 points in the second half before Curry took over. He scored 25 of his 30 points after the break.

The RBC concourse

After the Georgetown win. More like this from Tripp over at The Davidson Project. Who else has photos like these?

Over at The Davidson Project

Watch. Me to Evan: “That day after the game I went to the press conference and then I went back to the locker room and THEN I went up there and that was STILL going on.” Evan to me: “What was so cool was that we all just needed to congregate. Our first instinct was to share it with each other. You know? It was so wonderfully spontaneous. Yet the emotions that produced it were years in the making.” Later that night back in the village.

We’ve seen this before

Tripp took this picture. Ann Arbor. First weekend of Stephen’s college career. Everyone who cares to know probably knows something about the circumstances: 13 turnovers against Eastern Michigan one night, 32 points against Michigan the next. Who knows what exactly McKillop is saying to his freshman shooting guard here but Tripp and Bro like to think it went something like this:

“Keep shooting.”

Thus beginneth and whatnot.

Anyway, right now is the first time I’ve opened my laptop since flying from Tampa to Denver Friday night, but I’ve been half-following the action in Vegas on the BlackBerry via Google Alerts and the occasional e-mail and text. I scanned the stats and the coverage off his first game with the Warriors and thought to myself: Interesting, but his second game will be more telling, because if I know Stephen ...

Here: 29 points, 27 after halftime, and quotes like this: “But he never dropped his head ...”

It’s hard not to think about Gonzaga, Georgetown, West Virginia, etc., etc., etc.

Claire sent an e-mail last night with a link, and also some words from the past, spoken on CBS on March 23, 2008:

“He’s not gonna stop shooting, I can assure you that, Jim.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like, he’s not hangin’ his head … Shots definitely not anywhere close to droppin’ like they were on Friday -- but he can still light it up with half the half to go…”

Tomorrow in Washington

Michael Lee: Of course, most people locally remember how he single handily shot down Georgetown in the NCAA Tournament in 2008.

And back in Davidson ...

From the St. Pete Times:

The drive back from the games in Raleigh ended with a police escort into town past toilet-papered trees. The lights of the team bus swung toward Belk Arena and landed on 500 cheering fans. The first hug Richards got was from his history thesis adviser.

At the Brickhouse, with satellite trucks outside, the crowd hollered and yelled every time the Davidson highlights played on ESPN. Then came the clip of Curry in the postgame news conference. The people looked up at his face and the place went hush.

March 23, 2008

“I’m leaving Raleigh right now, and I live in Florida,” I said over the phone to the woman at the Village Inn. “But I need to be in Davidson tonight.”

“You should’ve heard all the horns honking,” she told me, “here in this little town.”

Joy