On DeCourcy picking Davidson

It was pointed out over at Cats.com that the Sporting News preview mag has Davidson playing in the 2010 NCAA tournament even thought it also has Davidson finishing third in the South Division of the Southern Conference.

The league run-down was written by freelancer Michael Bradley. The tourney projections came from SN senior writer Mike DeCourcy. Mike, I know, is an admirer of Davidson basketball and more specifically of Bob McKillop.

Here’s some of what he told me almost a year and a half ago, on April 30, 2008, when we talked for the book -- and maybe a part of an explanation for his pick:

“I see a commitment to system. I see a belief in what they do. I see that even when they’re out-manned.”

“A lot of guys get to that level by selling themselves as coaches and selling the program. But there are very few coaches out there who teach the game as well as Bob.”

“His guys know how to play the game. And they get better.”

Sporting News preview mag

Michael Bradley says:

Things didn’t go exactly as planned for the Southern Conference last year, thanks to Davidson’s semifinal stumble in the conference tournament and subsequent relegation to the NIT. Instead of showcasing star Stephen Curry and perhaps benefiting from another magical NCAA run, Chattanooga went into the big-time fray as a No. 16 seed and emerged with a predictably ugly result.

Curry, the league’s top performer, has now gone to the NBA. He’s irreplaceable, but the overall quality of play should improve this year, and each division will feature exciting title chases that will make for an entertaining championship tournament, held this year in Charlotte, N.C., in an attempt to cut travel costs. That may or not be enough to capture the nation’s attention, but it will guarantee plenty of outstanding matchups.

The South Division should be exciting, since Curry’s departure renders Davidson mortal and gives hope to The Citadel, College of Charleston and Wofford.

Picked third in the South. No Wildcats on the all-conference team. Recruiting class is ranked second behind Chattanooga.

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.

The other Curry

Seth: “I wouldn’t have minded playing with my brother, but I kind of wanted to separate myself, make my own name.”

Shoe money

SportsBusiness Daily via the Sporting News: Nike is close to shoe deals with top-10 draft picks Clippers F Blake Griffin, Thunder G James Harden and Warriors G Stephen Curry.

The day before?

Transformers 2.

My teammate

Stephen: “I met up with my teammate Steve Rossiter, who is from Staten Island. He came by and we watched the game. Then I got some rest because the next day was a big day.”

The Sporting Blog

Dan Shanoff:

As predicted here a month ago, Stephen Curry is rising into the Top 5 -- I suspect the Wizards will draft him at No. 5, either to play him alongside Gilbert Arenas or to trade him to a team high on Curry’s shooting ability (hmm ... see below); Curry has the most NBA-ready skill-set in the draft.

Speaking of Curry, he will work out for the Knicks today. Too bad he won’t be around at No. 8, so either the Knicks are going to trade up -- perhaps eating one or more of the Wizards’ bad contracts to get to No. 5 -- or they are thinking Curry may slip? (Not going to happen.)

More from Dell

To Mike DeCourcy: “He knows what the NBA is all about from his experience with being around me in childhood. He knows you have to be 100 percent committed because it’s a big boys’ game, and it’s good that he understands that. Who can fault a guy if he wants to go back to school and finish his degree and play another year and live another year of college life? College was the best four years of my life, and I told him that, as well. But who can fault a guy if his kid-long dream was to play in the NBA and he has the opportunity? There is no wrong decision.”

All-American

Stephen makes the Sporting News first team. (This list too.)

Davidson’s biggest advocate?

It might be Mike DeCourcy.

An NBA point?

Sean Deveney:

Yes, he does have a chance. He has shown he does have some point-guard skills, he is a very willing worker and we all know he is a leader who can shoot like crazy. So, he has a chance, and given the fact that the skills he does have are obvious and impressive, he is worth a lottery pick.

But if the question is, do I think he will be a great point guard … I am not so sure about that. Great point guards have a certain natural ballhandling ability and court vision, and though it can take time to develop both of those on an NBA level, you can usually see signs of it when the guy is in college. I don’t really see Curry as someone with great court vision. I think he is a capable ballhander -- he can get the ball up the floor and start the offense -- but no one is going to confuse him with Jason Kidd.

Having said that, Curry is an NBA player, and he’ll have a good career, even if it is as a guy you bring off the bench in a combo guard role -- think Jason Terry. He can play the point in a pinch, he can stretch defenses with his shooting and he has a good basketball IQ.

Midseason All-American

Stephen’s on Mike DeCourcy’s team:

He has disappeared back into the anonymity of the Southern Conference. When the folks at ESPN run Davidson’s scores on their crawl, they don’t even show how many points Curry has scored -- even though it’s almost always a newsworthy total, and even though we all are at least as interested in his numbers as whether Davidson wins. He leads the nation in scoring and is 10th in assists. Yep, he’s a point guard.

The decision

Sporting News: “Will you be back for your senior year?”

Stephen: “That’s the plan right now. I don’t want to think too much about a decision I have to make at the end of the year because that will distract me for this season.”

Talk. Lots of talk. Always the talk. The expected talk.

What it is.

The seven keys of Davidson basketball are:

1. Have an act.

2. See.

3. Talk.

4. Flesh to flesh.

5. Balance.

6. Details.

7. Finish.

Stephen Curry

All colleges.

All sports.

All year.

Not Tebow. Not Tyler.

The story continues.

Stephen vs. J.J.

The kids at the Chronicle at Duke want to know.

“Who’s better: J.J. Redick or Stephen Curry?”

This comparison came up in one of my conversations last summer with Mike DeCourcy.

Mike’s take on Stephen: “He has qualities of J.J. Redick. He runs through the offense and never stops basically. That’s an unusual thing. But what really separates him is the release. His lack of need for space. The thing that he has now that J.J. didn’t have until his senior year, maybe, is his invention -- his ability to make up a shot in the moment.”

Like?

“The play against Georgetown that tied it. The scoop layup. He went basically through three guys, and that was not at a point when Georgetown was not paying attention. A lot of people knew him just as a shooter, but that was the most impressive play I saw anybody make in the NCAA tournament. Because he defeated three high-level defenders, all of them bigger than he was, and at a critical moment.”

The people’s choice

DeCourcy: What makes Davidson guard Stephen Curry different than just about any college player this decade is simply this: Every time he has the ball in his hands, he brings you forward in your seat. What might happen now? What shot might he invent? Will he create room for himself with some kind of step-back maneuver? Will he drive it and complete the play with some ridiculously creative finish? Will he throw a pass only he believes will squeeze between defenders and it does?

Curry isn’t just the most exciting college player this season. He is the most exciting since, at least, Allen Iverson left Georgetown in 1996.