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.

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.”

Super Bowl XLIV

Story in this morning’s paper.

Waveland, Miss.

Hard to believe it’ll be five years come August.

Cape Canaveral

Here for the shuttle landing.

Coverage off last night

SPT:

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- USF has a faster, stronger, more athletic team than Davidson, but it took a long time for that to manifest itself on the scoreboard Thursday night.

With Gus Gilchrist scoring 19 of his game-high 21 points in the second half, USF held on to beat the Wildcats 65-58 in the first round of the Charleston Classic at Carolina First Arena.

“That was a really tough game,” said coach Stan Heath, whose Bulls improved to 3-0. “We just could not shake them. We knew they were awfully good. I’m really proud of my guys.”

McKillop in the Observer: “I think guys have to execute their assignments better. The ever elusive quality we need to grasp is consistency. I thought we got pretty good looks at the basket. We need to capitalize.” Trib. DavidsonWildcats.com.

Tonight in Charleston

On the bottom of 5C in the paper that pays my bills:

Star guard Stephen Curry is now with the Golden State Warriors, so Davidson isn’t quite the force it has been.

Distraction for USF? Eh. Nobody cares. It’s still football season down here.

Observer says ... not much.

Last year in Charleston? At C of C. At The Citadel. Also (of course) March ’08. A text I got from Bro that night after the championship game win while sitting in the bar at the North Charleston Sheraton: “We are good. George Mason good. Gonzaga good. Stan Heath Kent State good.”

Thursday night’s opponent

SPT: It’s only two games, but there’s a different energy around USF’s basketball team. Stan Heath on Twitter: Team Defense sparked Bulls home victory. Up nxt Davidson in Charlston Tourney. Developing more bench depth will b a focus ovr nxt week.

In my morning paper

My SPT colleague Greg Auman on USF’s big-hope big guy: If you ask Stan Heath, the difference in Gus Gilchrist from a year ago is like night and day. It could also end up being the difference between losing and winning for USF basketball. Charleston Classic.

How people talk about Davidson basketball

Now it’s like this:

Heard of any of these teams? Kansas? Alabama? Syracuse? UMass? Davidson?

And like this:

Wozniak is being recruited by several schools, most notably ...

Used to be pretty much the opposite, of course -- the program was pretty darn good, and yet nobody knew, or only the avid, educated few. The power of March. The power of CBS. The power of a star in sports-info-tainment in a celebrity culture.

Words

Meanwhile, down here in The Fla, watching a different kind of human drama. Also these.

Down here at the SPT

What I do when I’m not doing this.

The Year After

From Shelton’s column this morning down here:

It has been a chore to watch the Rays this year. They show flashbacks of their old selves in this game or that, sometimes even in this series or that, and then they backslide again. We are 29 games into the season, and so far the Rays have not managed as much as a three-game winning streak. This time last year, they already had a six-game streak, and they were on the verge of putting together another.

And this from Topkin’s notebook:

The Rays are 13-16 and 6½ games out of first, and Sternberg said, “If the expectations weren’t so high people would think we were playing really well.”

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.

Hitting the road

This is over. See you tomorrow.

83-43

Missed the first five or so minutes -- matricide trial this week -- but it was like 14-2 when I flipped on Teamline. Gracious. What is there to say? That’s what happens when arguably one of the best teams in the history of the modern Southern Conference plays arguably one of the worst. 30 with a cake-easy 30? Up by 40 on a dunk by Frank? The other team scoring four points in the first -- WHAT? -- 17 minutes of the second half? I had a feeling McKillop might go in there at halftime and say something like: Here’s how we get better tonight. We don’t let ‘em score this half. So: scores of 60-32, 70-33, 83-34. McKillop to Kilgo: “That second-half defense was as good as we’ve ever had.” Charlotte. Greenville. AP. DavidsonNews.net. Lauren.