ESPN’s Pat Forde gets it right by comparing Davidson’s tourney run to the one made by Indiana St. and Larry Bird back in 1979.
It is right in terms of one guy shooting a team deep into the tourney. But Bird, in a pre-cable, pre-sports talk era, was in a way a better known quantity among sports fans across the nation than Stephen Curry was when the Big Dance kicked off. Bird had been on the cover of Sports Illustrated in November 1977, back when the mag was a major transmission belt of sports culture.
The Sycamores also charged thru their season unbeaten, which helped to keep Bird and his team on sports pages across the country. As a result, ISU was a number one seed in the NCAA’s West region, not a #10 seed like Davidson. Bird was also a junior by then, after two seasons of averaging over 31 points and 12 boards a game, and was absolutely on the sports world’s radar screens.
Not so much Davidson and Curry. Sure, the Carolinas have known and the hoops mad have known, but I guarantee Big Ten fans had no clue that Curry was more than a spot up shooter and that Davidson has a wonderful mix of players to execute their system. Playing a against a Badger team that supposedly was built on defense and had better athletes, Davidson’s Max Paulhus Gosselin was by far the best defender on the court. Watching him play defense is almost as much fun as watching Curry on the offensive end. Almost.
Curry is simply in a zone and has the total trust of his team — in fact the belief factor is off the charts across the team. This is what gives the Wildcats a shot against a much faster, quicker Kansas team that will not treat running the ball up the court as some new-fangled invention. PG Jason Richards will be tested as never before by Jayhawk guards who pride themselves on defense.
No matter the outcome, Davidson has engineered one for the books. On a very short page.
Bonus Trivia: Bird’s first tourney victim back in 1979 was Virginia Tech. A couple years later, Dell Curry turned up in Blacksburg.
