Last night’s game played out a lot like each of Davidson’s NCAA tournament victories (and like the Kansas game should have ended) in that the Wildcats would fall behind by 10, 15 or 20 points and then Curry would go absolutely nuts in the second half and bring them back into the game. After trailing last night by 21, Curry started pouring it on later in the second half and almost brought Davidson all the way back. But instead, Blake Griffin and the Sooners held on for a hard-fought win.
I think Davidson’s season is going to resemble last year’s regular season in that the Wildcats just aren’t going to have enough to beat most of the good teams they play but they should stay ranked all year because of Curry’s notoriety and because they’re going to kill everyone in the Southern Conference. But last night, Curry scored 44 and Davidson still didn’t win. He’s likely not going to score that much every game (in fact it was his career high) so if they want to actually knock off the kind of teams they were beating in the tournament last year, they’re going to need a lot more production, and I just don’t think they have it.
Speaking of incredible players, Blake Griffin. 25 points and 21 rebounds while going against a pretty good opponent, Andrew Lovedale. In his three games this year he’s already averaging 23 points, 19 rebounds and 2 assists. And on top of that, he’s only a sophomore!
Moving on to another game for a second, North Carolina is either really, outrageously good or Kentucky is not very good at all. Without Tyler Hansbrough, Carolina completely crushed UK last night at the Dean Dome. Deon Thompson dominated inside with 20 and 9 before fouling out late in the game. Meanwhile, Carolina forced Kentucky into 28 turnovers (apparently something UK has an issue with after 25 in their opening loss to VMI).
Carolina is going to have a weird season because they’re going to have to adjust whenever Hansbrough comes back and then again when Marcus Ginyard returns later in December. But if they can get that transition out of the way early on, they’re going to be really tough to beat later this winter.
