Watching the Wildcats

This past Tuesday evening, the Davidson Wildcats were in Norman, Oklahoma to take on the Sooners in a Preseason NIT game for the right to go to Madison Square Garden. A bunch of the coaches and members of the athletic department met at the only sports hub in Davidson to watch the 9:30PM tip-off on ESPN2. It was pretty neat and I'm glad I went, especially since social settings + sporting events usually don't mix well with me. Davidson fell short to beating Oklahoma by just four points after trailing by 21 with 13 minutes left and by 15 with 5 minutes left. Everyone was down, but not deflated - it was a quality showing by the Cats against the #12 team in the country.

Mostly everyone at this point knows about Stephen Curry. He pretty much put the Wildcats on his back and carried them all the way to the Elite Eight before falling 2 points short of beating national champion Kansas. Personally, I didn't know much about Davidson's team last year (or at any time) and didn't know what the big deal was. Even as he torched Gonzaga, Georgetown, and Wisconsin, I just assumed that he was one of the players that is getting hot at the right moment and that it would only be a matter of time before he cooled.

That's not really the case with Steph.

Trust me, you've got to come down here to watch him play.

I don't think I've ever seen, in person, someone get the green light to shoot FROM ANYWHERE. Even as he continues to refine his passing and point guard skills, witnessing Steph at work is pretty cool. He's not selfish. He's not over-ambitious. He's a shooter in the purest sense of the word. Yes, he did throw up one air-ball and one missile straight off the glass. But that didn't deter him and probably never will.

So, when I was watching that ESPN2 telecast and Steph started accumulating all of those points, and the bar would erupt as the Oklahoma's lead shrank, I couldn't help but chuckle knowing I saw this team and that guy live. Davidson will have a huge following this season and who knows if it will last forever or if they are really bandwagoning to watch Curry shoot 500 times. It's pretty clear, though, that he's a remarkable player and I would really like to claim that I'm getting YOU tickets to come down here and watch him play.

Now that Davidson lost to the Sooners and since each of the 16 teams in the Preseason NIT are guaranteed 4 games, that means Davidson has to play two more games. Fortunately for us, Davidson was chosen as the host site, so Florida Atlantic (and Mike Jarvis!!!!!) James Madison, and Loyola of Maryland are coming here on Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving to play.

Two more opportunities to watch them play - in case you're interested.