Kansas concerns go beyond Curry
DETROIT – OK, so the entire country now knows every last detail about Stephen Curry, the sweet-shooting guard who’s got double-digit Davidson one game away from the Final Four.
But Curry didn’t get the Wildcats this far all by himself. There’s also Jason Richards, the sublime point guard who can shoot it as well as he sets it up. There’s Andrew Lovedale, a big guy with a feathery touch. There’s Max Paulhus Gosselin, who actually thrives on setting screens. And on and on.
Lose track of any of them, and Kansas is in for a long day today, followed by an equally uncomfortable off-season.
“There’s a lot of things that concern us,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self said. “They’re a physical team. They do a great job of setting very physical, legal screens. They do a great job defensively of not letting you go where you want to go, riding off cuts, things like that.”
On paper, Kansas (34-3) should win today’s game easily. The Jayhawks are the power in a power conference, so stocked with talent they’re bringing guys off the bench who would start at most schools. They have four players averaging in double figures and another just short, and two guys who average more than six boards a game. They can play big or small and do it at a grinding halt or a playground pace.
They’re walloping opponents by almost 20 points a game – best in the nation – and their three losses were by a combined 13 points.
But Davidson (29-6) didn’t stumble into its first regional final since 1969. The Wildcats have the nation’s longest winning streak at 25, and they beat three very good teams to get here, including Georgetown, a Final Four team last year. One more win will put the Wildcats in very select company. Only two double-digit seeds have reached the Final Four, and George Mason’s run in 2006 captivated the entire country.
“We feel like we belong here and we feel like we showed that in the past three games,” forward Thomas Sander said. “You know, we’re just Davidson. That’s what we consider ourselves. We think we can go out there and compete. That’s what we try to do.”