A Max update

Here.

Yesterday afternoon in Charlotte

Went to watch Jordan Downing at the Bojangles’ Coliseum, formerly Cricket Arena, formerly Independence Arena, formerly the (old) Charlotte Coliseum, the site of course of many great Davidson basketball moments back in the Lefty-led short-shorts days. Hopewell pulled away in the second quarter and won big. Thoughts on Jordan? He didn’t take too many shots -- just good ones. He hit a three in transition, an elbow jumper off the dribble, a contested layup on a break, a couple free throws. All good shots at good times. He’s no hog. The free throws came when he was fouled on a hoppy two-handed dunk try. On the other end he can be -- will be? -- an ace. He’s quick and long and seems to want to defend. I won’t call anybody the new Max, because that’s saying a heck of a lot and it’s not fair, but I’ll at least float the thought. The kid’ll fit right in.

2007 SoCon champs

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Life after Stephen (and Andrew, and Max, and ...)

Jeff Hartsell in Charleston:

But as Davidson comes to McAlister Field House tonight, Citadel coach Ed Conroy expects a team that’s much better adjusted to life without Curry, now playing for pay with the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

“From what I’ve seen on tape so far, they are a typical Bob McKillop-coached team,” Conroy said. “They have a lot of talented players. Maybe they haven’t found their perfect chemistry and mix yet, but they will. And they will have a heck of a season, I believe.”

I appreciated this story because it did something a lot of stories so far this year have not. It at least alluded to the reality that the first year of the post-Stephen Curry era for Davidson is also the first year of the post-Andrew Lovedale era and the post-Max Paulhus Gosselin era. I’ll add, too, that this is the second year of the post-Jason Richards era and the post-Thomas Sander era. All these guys for the Davidson College basketball program were historically good.

Just some quick thoughts on tonight

Oof. Listened to this one down here in St. Pete. Tough to tell with no video feed so what do I know?

But ...

1. Defense creates offense. At least it does when a team has the personnel to do that. And Davidson has been that kind of team and was very much that kind of team over the last few years. That was because of the will of the sytem, but it also was because of Max, and Stephen, and Andrew. They’re gone now. Those extra possessions add up.

2. Will started strong. Bryant finished strong. It’s harder without Stephen and all the attention he drew. But everybody knew that coming in.

3. Honest assessment from McKillop on the radio after the game: “We cannot have any missing links. That’s got to be the standing motto for our team. No missing links.”

4. That’s two games of data. Tomorrow there’s a third. It’s Nov. 19.

5. We don’t have to fix it. We just have to watch.

Message from Max

Via Facebook: I am doing great. I coach basketball and I do motivational speaking for kids in elementary and high school.

Reading the media guide

Media guides of course are propaganda as much as they are actual information, and that’s the way it should be, but two things (so far) stand up on the page and sound like truth:

1. Three players from last year’s team -- Lovedale, Paulhus Gosselin and Curry -- were superb defenders. It will take dedicated team defense from this group to make up for their absence.

2. McKillop: “We need to convert our 3-point shooting potential into game production.”

Last year in Indy

More over at The Davidson Project.

From up north

Crown in Canada:

In recent years Quebec has bred established players like Will Archambault and Max Paulhus-Gosselin, who both played a crucial role in Davidson’s Cinderella like run two years ago all the way to the “Elite 8” in the 2008 NCAA tournament.

Also a Niko mention.

People who don’t know

Mid-Major Madness:

A sad fan base turns its lonely eyes to the void that is left by a departed Stephen Curry. Curry led the Wildcats to an average of 28.3 wins in his three seasons, but he’s not the only loss for the Wildcats. Second-leading scorer Andrew Lovedale and league defensive player of the year Max Paulhus Gosselin also are gone. Archambault (8.3 ppg) is the top returning scorer. Look for JP Kuhlman, a three-star guard who can light it up from deep, to make an early impact.

I’m not sad. Are you sad?

Keeping dreams afloat

Max: The goal is to help people as we travel around the world. The goal is to show that helping is not harder than not helping. The goal is to inspire others to help as well. The goal is far from being reached. But the process is what we are seeking not the results. Peter Wagner: He’s absolutely kinetic.

Awards season

Winners: Andrew, Max, Stephen.

Last Thursday night

Keith Onsdorff ’71 in my inbox:

The dinner last week was a very moving DC family event. I was most impressed by the highly articulate talks given by Can, Max and Andrew. As I mentioned to Coach McKillop, all three of these young gentlemen will, without doubt, be successful leaders in their individual chosen real world endeavors.

I was fortunate to run into my senior year roommate’s parents at the dinner, and when they told me that they had not read your book yet, I promised to send them one of mine. Of course, on reflection, I realized they would surely enjoy having a new edition, so I ordered one from Butler earlier today -- hope to keep you in print for as long as possible.

Last night’s banquet

Pearl on Max’s speech: Max said that he has played his last game, and he played it in a Davidson uniform. Maybe I welled up just a little. Max is the kind of guy who makes you proud to be associated with Davidson basketball. I told him later that I think about him the way I think about Thomas Sander -- the embodiment of a Davidson Wildcat.

Niko

A piece of the future. (Thanks Bro.)

One five

A year ago today

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

TCC

A lesson

Max: “It wasn’t going to a restaurant that changed things. It was a change in our mindset and the way we see the games.”

Quarters

*** 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.

*** The kid took 18 shots.

*** If I were making a movie: Clock running down, end of the game, no more fouls, Max “guarding” the Appalachian kid Sims who’s just bouncing the ball before the buzzer. Max smiles at him. Camera close. Left arms up. Close on the TCC on his inner arm. Or something like that. Nice tiny little moment.

*** Frank Santore is here.

*** So are the Hawks, the Bulls, the Bobcats, the Rockets, the Grizzlies, the Sixers, the Suns, The Wizards and the Thunder.

*** Seth was the halftime guest on the radio.

*** Bro, down in Corpus, evidently was not a happy camper:

I was billed twice for my feed of the Davidson App. state game on the Saturday feed of the Southern Conference basketball. Not only do I want one of the ridiculous $16 charges taken since I was charged twice, I also want a full refund on the other $16 charge because the technical difficulties prevented me from watching most of the Davidson App. State. Enough. Give me my money back. I am extremely disappointed in this service, the feed this year and the Southern Conference for increasing the price so much this year. It’s nearing a depression and you have the audacity to increase the charges more than 100 percent. Embarrassing.

Refund now. All $32.

Here’s the response from someone named Site Support:

I’ve cancelled your account and you will receive your refund in 5-10 business days.

Anybody else out there have feed-related issues?

*** Wildcat factoid: What’s Max drink after games to stave off dehydration? Gatorade? No. Water? No. Pedialyte? Yes. Orange flavor. Max explained to me in the locker room after the game, in his very Max way, that babies are treated the best of all of us -- right? -- so why wouldn’t he drink it to replenish his league-defensive-player-of-the-year-ish-ness? On the back of the little bottle, I pointed out to him, it said USE UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF A DOCTOR. He said it was okay because his sister’s a doctor.

*** I said to Stephen in the locker room that the 35-footer near the end of the game looked like the 35-footer against Elon in last year’s conference championship game. Stupid me. He said it felt more like the 35-footer from this year against N.C. State.

*** Win today, you get a tomorrow. Wipe it clean, movin’ on. March.