Loyola (MD) had this neat little gameplan they decided to try against Davidson. They wanted to double team Stephen Curry.
Not just when Curry was in position to shoot. Not when Curry had the ball. No. Loyola-MD decided to double-team Curry everywhere on the court no matter what. I'm not kidding.
That meant that Loyola was guarding the other four Davidson players with three guys in a triangle zone. Once Curry figured out what they were doing, he just stood in the corner and let his teammates pile up the points. It worked: Davidson won 78-48.
"Every dead ball I asked them how long they were going to do this," Curry said he asked his shadowing defenders. "They really didn't say anything. They weren't very conversational about it."
"We had to play against an NBA player tonight," Loyola head coach Jimmy Patsos explained. "Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I'm a history major. They're going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?"
Both, actually. I will remember it as the game where Loyola was so bad that they held Curry scoreless and still lost by 30 points.
This week, FanHouse is taking a look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.
Today, we have enlisted me, The Sportz Assassin, of FanHouse and SportzAssassin.com, to break down the Davidson Wildcats.
We all remember last season. Davidson began the season taking on top programs like North Carolina, UCLA and Duke, rolling through the Southern Conference schedule and then getting to the Elite Eight. Along the way, the Wildcats popped Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin and nearly beat eventual champion Kansas.
Stephen Curry became a superstar. Head coach Bob McKillop was finally getting his national recognition. The little school just outside of Charlotte is now big time.
Davidson reached the Elite Eight last year and were a missed three-pointer at the buzzer from downing eventual champion Kansas. On the way to facing Kansas, the Wildcats beat Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin. The 2008 NCAA Tournament will mostly be remembered for what McKillop's Wildcats did.
This news makes me happy because it is nice to see a coach from a small school stick around once his program gets some notice. Many times, a coach uses an opportunity like that to land a much higher profile (and paying) job. It is hard to blame them since most people who jump at those chances.
Despite getting knocked out by Kansas in the Elite Eight, the one player that defined the 2008 NCAA Tournament is Davidson's Stephen Curry. Curry tore up this tournament ... averaging 32 points in beating Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin before losing to the Jayhawks by two.
After Kansas ended Davidson's dream run in the NCAA tournament on Sunday, Curry said that he will return to school for his junior season.
That's great because Curry and the Davidson Wildcats really electrified this tournament. A tournament that had seen a ton of blowouts needed something to get us excited about.
Here are just some little tidbits about the Elite 8, which begins tonight:
Never has all four #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four (they all are still alive)
The only remaining coaches that have won a National Championship are Rick Pitino and Roy Williams. They face off against each other tonight.
Xavier's Sean Miller and Davidson's Bob McKillop will be making their first Elite 8 appearances. The others have all been there before.
Louisville and UNC play in the men's tournament at 9:00pm tonight in Charlotte. The women's team will face off in the women's tournament at noon in New Orleans.
This is UCLA's third straight Elite 8. They won the last two times.
This is Memphis' third straight Elite 8. They lost the last two times.
Half of last year's Elite 8 is back.
When Roy Williams was at Kansas and Rick Pitino was at Kentucky, Kansas beat Kentucky 150-95 back in 1989.
The last South Region champion to win the entire tournament was Kentucky in 1998.
College basketball coaches are a weird bunch. They are control freaks who are media savvy and live in an isolated world of hoopdom. But what if they weren't coaching? What would they do? Who would they be?
The blog CatsandBeer.com attempts to figure that out to hilarious results:
Every year Cinderella captures our hearts in the NCAA Tournament. They begin fittings for their glass slippers in November, though. They Do Not Come From Nowhere introduces you to the teams that will be busting brackets nationwide come March.
If you were building an unsung team that has the makings of a March surprise it would have experience on the court and on the sideline, play good defense and have a superstar capable of taking over a game on the offensive end. In other words, it would look like Davidson and that's why they almost knocked off North Carolina in Charlotte last night.
Davidson returns every scholarship player from last year's 29-win team, a team that was considered too young to challenge for the Southern Conference title. Jason Richards is a heady point guard whose 7-plus assists a game were attained with a sparkling 2.35 assist/turnover ratio. Forwards Thomas Sander and Boris Meno combined for nearly 25 points and 15 rebounds a game and with Andrew Lovedale created a frontline that helped the Wildcats outrebound their opponents by a wide margin.
Loyola (MD) had this neat little gameplan they decided to try against Davidson. They wanted to double team Stephen Curry. 
This week, FanHouse is taking a look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.
Davidson head coach 
College basketball coaches are a weird bunch. They are control freaks who are media savvy and live in an isolated world of hoopdom. But what if they weren't coaching? What would they do? Who would they be?
Every year Cinderella captures our hearts in the NCAA Tournament. They begin fittings for their glass slippers in November, though. 
