Seven hundred and thirty days later

Claire: There was a power in those moments that I never tried to understand, but just let it sweep me up, clear knowledge that nothing else in the world was important except for the life we share and how this expressed that.

Say yes

March 30, 2008:

Those were the words running through his head.

Say yes.

Say yes.

Say yes.

‘The Document’

So I’m reading Kyle’s latest and nodding.

... they should be functioning time capsules that help us remember when our memory fails us. They allow future generations piece together the meaning for themselves.

There is a feeling that binds George Mason 2006, Davidson 2008 and Butler 2010 together.

... to sell those ahead of us on the idea that this was a really powerful experience for a lot of people.

And then:

I didn’t really like Michael Kruse’s Taking The Shot: when I first read it, I felt it was too esoteric and short, padded with extraneous material and featuring more footnotes than a David Foster Wallace book. But when I was back home for a few days nursing my broken immune system after Vancouver, I went back and re-read it. I “got it” a little more, and I could better see what the author was attempting. There are stories of the other players, and of fans and students, of free buses to Detroit, about the construction of the team, and the old and wise coach’s philosophy. And there is the feeling, in black and white, when the shot didn’t go down, when Davidson couldn't do what Mason did two years earlier, what Butler has done now. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a blueprint and a way forward.

It’s a very fair point. I actually would add a few more fars: far, far, far from perfect. I would change a lot of things about it, if I could go back and try it again, but I can’t. That’s the way it goes. One night at the Brickhouse, not long after it came out, I told William I thought it was flawed but earnest. Fail with some grace and hope to learn from it for later. This is one reason I’m excited about The Davidson Project. More voices, more accessible, and a much, much wider frame: I think ultimately it will be a better version of what Kyle’s talking about here.

Two years ago today

Claire in Detroit:

Our victory bellows take over, melding us into one hot sweaty bonetired (up for seventeen hours straight come from down South twenty-four hours ago I didn’t even think I’d be here wasn’t I in a Wendy’s in Ohio eight hours ago is it really the same freaking day of the week?) euphoric disbelieving jumble of jubilant kids, screaming into the depths of these thousands for our hometown boys, our friends, our classmates. Bob McKillop’s face appears on the big screen, stoneset like we’re not going to win by seventeen points, not going to go to the Elite Eight, not going to be the story of the year -- just a normal game. And yet the clock slides easily down, no pressurecooker countdown no heartstopping miracle -- bliss pressing from all sides all people all mouths.

Soltys on Cats.com: 1. We won. 2. I was there.

(More) thoughts on the shot taken

Strange in a way to read in the current ESPN The Magazine a redux of the 16.8 seconds about which I wrote 40,000 words. My first thought, when I looked at the double-truck spread, and of course this is silly -- but my first thought was: But that’s OUR moment.

So you’ve got the comments from Kansas assistant Joe Dooley and you’ve got the comments from Stephen, and they’re short and simple and unavoidably revisionist just due to the passage of time if nothing else. And you’ve got the comments from McKillop in the part of the companion story about final possessions, which had additional comments from Stephen, which conspicuously had no comments from Jason. And anyway there are any number of things that could be said about it.

For now, though, I want to key in on just one part. Cue Stephen:

“I got a good ball fake in, and Rush really bit on it. But Jason’s defender [Sherron Collins] got a late break when Jason came back up the sideline, and he ended up in the perfect place at the perfect time to pick me up.”

Here’s what Steve Rodgers said on the resulting thread over on DavidsonCats.com:

The mistake JR made was coming towards the ball (Curry) when it looked like Curry might not get his shot off. It was instincitve, that’s what JR always did to get the ball back and restart the offense. When JR came towards Curry, Curry had pump fake his guy but JR’s man was now close enough to Curry to disrupt Curry’s shot. This left JR open but everyone, including JR would rather have had Curry take the shot.

That’s what I saw.

That’s what he saw because that’s what happened.

From the book:

Jason was in the right corner. He watched Stephen stop going to his left and turn and start heading to his right and toward Thomas' second screen near the top of the key.

Six seconds.

Jason watched Chalmers duck past Thomas and chase Stephen, and he watched Rush get up off the floor and start chasing Stephen, too.

Five seconds.

Jason decided he had to move, because he didn’t want this game to end with him just standing there, and if he stayed in the corner he would be doing nothing. He didn’t want to be watching.

He wanted to help.

You could stop there. Or ...

Jason started running toward Stephen.

Four seconds.

Stephen pump-faked and Rush jumped up and off to the side. Maybe here was a sliver of an opening for a shot. But Jason’s defender was running after Jason and left him now and bolted toward Stephen. He had his arms straight up.

The opening closed.

Do you want to end on help? Or do you want to end on closed? That moment within that moment always has been difficult to parse. I wrote it the way I wrote it because of what I knew and I knew what I knew because of the reporting I’d done. The reader as always can and should think whatever he or she wants to think.

In any event I like what Eddie wrote on the board:

I get the feeling JRich thinks we don’t complain about the missed shot because we're just being nice or something. That’s not true. We don’t complain about the missed shot because there isn’t a soul among us who thinks he is to “blame” for anything. What we remember, as we should, is that he’s a huge reason why we were there ...

It’s like William said so beautifully early in the week right after: ... in that moment, we had in our hearts and minds, proleptically I think the theologians would say, the joy of having it go in. Before it was not in, it was as good as in. For that fraction of a second, we had that experience, and it is enough. It is well worth the journey. At least for me it is, and I guess the ultimate point of this too-long post is that I hope it is also worth it for Jason. He took the shot. He gave us that moment. He trusted, and all we can do is be sure our reaction is worthy of that trust.

More with less

The other day in the St. Pete Times:

America’s teams, they’re often called, or Cinderellas wearing glass slippers, or overachieving underdogs within so much March Madness.

But all those sports entertainment cliches miss the more interesting, more instructive point: These teams are doing more with less.

That feels especially important right now.

AP: Davidson had a shot in the air to beat Kansas and reach the Final Four in 2008.

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.”

Basketball in March (and the other months too)

Brady in Kansas City: Self often breaks down games as simply as he can. Who made shots and who didn’t? In 2008, Davidson didn’t make the shot, and a week later, Kansas’ Mario Chalmers did. This time, Northern Iowa guard Ali Farokhmanesh made the shot that shocked the college basketball world. This fine line between winning and losing ...

Dime’s top 16 Madness Cinderellas

No. 1.

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.”

Dear America

Two years ago today:

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?

Claire.

The (YouTube) legacy

SI’s Stewart Mandel on Missouri’s Kim English:

On Friday, however, English drained 4 of 7 three-pointers and scored 20 points, his highest total since Feb. 6. Prior to the tourney, English watched a YouTube mashup of former Davidson star Stephen Curry’s 2008 NCAA run.

“He was just always so poised on the court, he never showed emotion, and that led to straight up, straight down [shots],” said English. “It’s like he’s in a phone booth.”

A phone booth. Interesting.

The posters for the Project

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

Andy Katz to Pat Forde

On Twitter just a minute ago: Are you on the Gael bandwagon yet? This could be a Davidson like run to the Elite Eight if they win here. How people talk.

What can’t be quantified

Not even by The Wall Street Journal:

For teams from smaller conferences that are facing the big guns, belief can be critical. Davidson coach Bob McKillop, whose 2008 team made a surprising run to the Elite Eight, notes that earlier that season the team got invaluable experience through competitive losses to North Carolina, Duke and UCLA. “It showed them that we could at least stay in the game for a significant amount of time,” he says.

Gonzaga coverage: Two years ago, as a No. 7 seed, they went to Raleigh, N.C., to discover the wonders of Stephen Curry 160 miles from his campus at Davidson.