Davidson 75, Western 72

AP:

CULLOWHEE -- Nik Cochran and Jake Cohen each scored 14 points to help Davidson hold off Western Carolina in a 75-72 victory on Saturday night.

Ben Allison had 12 points and Steve Rossiter added 10 for the Wildcats (13-12, 8-5 Southern Conference), who held a 70-67 lead on Will Archambalt’s jumper with 4:20 left in the second half.

Western Carolina’s Harouna Mutombo answered with a 3-pointer to tie the game at 70-70 with 4:07 to play. But the Catamounts (18-8, 8-6) would not pull ahead, as Cohen’s layup with 1:05 remaining put Davidson up for good.

Asheville Citizen-Times: Sparked by one of the larger and more boisterous out-of-town crowds to visit the Ramsey Center this winter, Davidson (13-12, 8-5) won for the fifth time in its last six games despite shooting 7-of-23 (30.4 percent) from 3-point range. DavidsonWildcats.com: Davidson reserves put up 35 points. ... Cochran, Barr and Allison combined to score 28 points off the bench in the first half. ... Barr and Will Archambault are one game away from tying Andrew Lovedale for the school record for career games played (130). McKillop: “This is the kind of game you’d see in a conference tournament. This is the kind of game that shows you why Western Carolina’s won 18 games and beat Louisville.”

Tonight in Cullowhee

Game notes: The Catamounts are 3-3 in their last six and coming off an 81-76 setback at Elon Monday. ... Western Carolina is 12-1 at home this season with the lone loss coming to Appalachian State a week ago. ... Davidson caps the regular season by playing five games in 11 days. ... Bryant Barr needs two points to reach 700 for his career. Western: Western Carolina is looking for the regular season sweep of Davidson which would be its first two-game sweep of the Wildcats since 1985.

Because I like it

Eddie on Cats.com:

It’s really difficult to tell whether a team such as this one is progressing, and sometimes it’s difficult to agree on how one defines the concept of “progress.”

This team is a collection of players who are one or more of the following: long time role players being asked to do more, guys playing hurt at one time or another, and guys who are green (in the sense of experience as opposed to carbon footprint). Two steps forward and one step back, or (the less happy reverse of that), is just going to happen. And this happens in a relative world in which other teams, some of which might have fewer variables with which to contend, are “progressing” on more of a straight line progression. So slight progression looks an awful lot like regression in the relative world of competing against conference opponents.

Bob McKillop likes to withhold information about lots of things, but when he actually does talk about something, history indicates that he’s being truthful. When he describes the team (paraphrasing the WCU postgame comments) as “far away but not that far away,” he’s probably telling us that the team needs to be a whole lot better, but “getting there" is actually doable and requires execution of all the steps to make a play or a defensive stop successful, and not just most of them. Obviously, he thinks these guys are capable of the offensive and defensive assignments they’ve been given, and that they are not so physically/athletically/mentally overmatched that they have got to go to a zone or some other solution that people are talking about. If he in fact installs such a thing, it will be an objective commentary that I personally won’t be happy to hear. [I know reasonable minds are disagreeing about this.]

02 identified things that are improving; we’ve all seen the types of things that aren’t. It’s tough for us, and even tougher for the players and coaches, to know that this hasn’t “come together” yet, especially when we also know that, absent a collapse by Wofford, we’re nearing a point at which it might come together too late to avoid a play-in game. So anxiety gets added onto the mental and physical slip-ups that have been costing them games. Bob analogized to the home loss to WCU in ’06, which fanatics will recall to be the kind of gut check/crisis of confidence moment from which a team can pivot in either direction. The ’06 team righted the ship, though mixed in there were losses at Ga So and Wofford, and they trailed The Citadel by something like 17 points in the SoCon quarterfinals before blowing through that tournament and putting Ohio State to a severe test in Dayton.

McKillop on the radio

“We are gonna get this done. We are gonna get this done.”

Western 77, Davidson 67

AP:

DAVIDSON -- Jake Robinson came off the bench to score 20 points, including 4-for-5 on 3-pointers, as Western Carolina hung on to beat Davidson 77-67 Wednesday night after losing most of a 24-point lead.

The Catamounts (15-3, 5-1 Southern Conference), who had lost their last five games against the Wildcats (8-11, 3-4), led 44-22 after a first half in which they shot 63 percent (17-for-27) to Davidson’s 14.8 percent (4-for-27).

The game changed in the second half, when Brendan McKillop scored all 13 of his points to lead the Wildcats’ comeback.

DavidsonNews.net: Davidson dug itself a big hole in the first half, trailing 44-22 at the break. But they battled back in the second half, coming as close as 4 points (60-56) with 5:43 left. But they couldn’t get any closer. DavidsonWildcats.com: Down 48-24 1:49 into the second half, Davidson used a 16-2 run to cut the lead to 10 by the 14:11 mark. Western Carolina maintained the double-digit cushion, taking a 60-47 lead after Robinson sank a 3-pointer with 7:36 to go until Davidson went on a 9-0 spurt to cut the lead to just four with 5:43 remaining. That was as close as the ‘Cats would come as they turned the ball over four times in the final three minutes of play. Asheville: WCU regrouped and won for just the third time against Davidson since 2001. More. Western’s Jake Robinson: “Coach walked by us in the pre-game warm-ups and said, 'Huh, 21-point margin the last three years.’ He has a way of delivering a message.”

Tonight at Belk

Game notes for Western: It will be the first home game with students on campus as the previous seven were during a holiday break. Last year.

He finished this

Western

*** Talk early in the evening on the in-game thread over at DavidsonCats.com of Stephen going for 50 after his fast start. It’s not like that. Stephen will score 50, if he scores 50, when he needs to score 50. Tonight was not that night. Tonight? More like a 26, 8 and 8 in 28 minutes kind of night.

*** There was a play with like five minutes to go in the first half that was classic Davidson basketball. A kid from Western threw in a crazy bank-shot three. The kid from Western wanted a foul. The fans were wondering how the heck the shot had gone in. And all of a sudden, there was Brendan, son of the coach, laying the ball in on the other end.

From Taking the Shot:

Inside that tiny moment is weakness, and inside that weakness is opportunity for McKillop’s team.

Brendan’s layup? Not an accident.

*** Western called its first timeout of the second half with 20:00 on the clock. Max.

*** Bryant can shoot. Bryant’s always been able to shoot.

*** That’s No. 42.

*** These guys will go for their 20th win of the season on the fifth day of February. Makes me think of Eddie’s post. The bright, sunlit uplands and whatnot.

*** I hear the college bookstore bought more books today. They keep buying books because you keep buying books. For which I say, humbly, sincerely: Thank you.

Tonight at Belk

Western’s Harouna Mutombo: “We know it’s not going to be an easy task. We’ve been preparing for that pretty much all week.” Also: Davidson. Western. Charlotte. Bleacher Report. Olson on Andrew.