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2007 Southern Conference Championship
March 3, 6:00 EST, North
Charleston Coliseum
ESPN2
#1 Davidson Wildcats Wildcats (28-4,
17-1 SoCon) vs. #3 College
of Charleston
Cougars (22-10, 13-5)
Starting
Lineups
Davidson
Charleston
G Jason Richards, Junior
G Dontaye Draper, Senior
G Stephen
Curry, Freshman
G Marcus Hammond, Sophomore
F Max
Paulhus-Gosselin, Sophomore
C Philip McCandies, Senior
F Thomas
Sander, Junior
F
David Lawrence, Senior
F Boris Meno,
Junior
F Jermaine Johnson, Sophomore
Coaches
Bob McKillop, Davidson –
McKillop is in his eighteenth
season as the head coach of the Wildcats, and this year has arguably
been his
finest effort ever. He’s already been
recognized as the 2007 Southern Conference Coach of the Year. And why not? The
Wildcats lost seven seniors from last year’s NCAA
Tournament team
and were subsequently picked to finish fourth
in their half of the conference
heading into this season. McKillop and
company scoffed at such a notion in the form of posting a 17-1 record
in
Southern Conference play and earning the #1 seed for this tournament. McKillop is looking for his fourth NCAA
Tournament bid (1998, 2002, 2006).
Bobby
Cremins, College of Charleston
– In just his first season as head man at the College of Charleston,
Cremins has the Cougars in the Southern Conference Championship for the
first
time since 2000. That’s the same year
Cremins retired from Georgia Tech, where he led the Yellow Jackets to
three ACC
Tournament titles and one Final Four Appearance in 1990.
Ironically, Cremins landed the job at Charleston
only after Winthrop’s
Gregg Marshall accepted the job
and then abruptly about-faced. Cremins
did the same in 1993 with Georgia Tech, as he bolted for South Carolina
but returned to the Jackets
three days later. The only place Cremins
will be going if the Cougars win on Sunday is the NCAA Tournament.
How They
Got Here
Davidson defeated
UT-Chattanooga 78-68 in the
quarterfinals. The Cats sleepwalked
through the first half before star freshman Stephen Curry woke up in
the second
frame to help Davidson escape. Davidson
defeated Furman 91-68 in the semi-finals that was a blowout pretty much
from
the beginning. Curry poured in 30 points
on 9-of-14 shooting (6-of-10 from beyond the arc) while Jason Richards
added 20
points and seven assists
College of Charleston defeated Georgia
Southern 77-66 in the
quarterfinals. After a lackluster first
half, the Cougars blew by the Eagles in the last 20 minutes. College
of Charleston
defeated
Appalachian State 89-87 in an instant classic semi-final, all but
blasting the Mountaineer
hopes of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Senior
Dantaye Draper turned in a performance
for the ages, drilling eight thee-pointers en route to scoring 38
points and
single-handedly carrying the Cougars to victory in overtime with two of
the
team’s big men already fouled out.
Previous
Meetings
January 6 at
Davidson: Davidson 81, College
of Charleston
73
February 12
at College
of Charleston: Davidson 73, College of Charleston 63
Keys to
the Game
Davidson – Curry has
started slow in each of Davidson’s
first two tournament games, with nerves clearly affecting him in the
quarters
and foul trouble sidelining him against Furman. He
was the Freshman Player of the Year in the conference
and narrowly
missed out on outright player of the year to UNC-Greensboro’s Kyle
Hines. Sure to face a hostile
pro-Charleston crowd,
Curry will have to come out much stronger in order to take the Cougar
faithful
out of the game.
Point guard
Jason Richards, a first-team All-Southern
Conference selection, just needs to keep doing what he has been doing. Richards is second in the nation in assists,
can score in bunches when necessary from both from long range and by
slashing
to the basket, and is the absolute glue of this offense.
Charleston – Draper
will most likely have to produce another out-of-this world performance. He has been the guy all season for the
Cougars and while his supporting cast is solid, Draper has not been
receiving
loads of help on a consistent basis. Forwards
Jermaine Johnson and David Lawrence will have to
shoulder some
of the scoring load even if Draper goes off once again. Both
teams must stay out of foul trouble, but Davidson is the much deeper
team, so this is especially critical for the Cougars.
Decisive
Matchup
You can bet
Wildcat defensive specialist Max
Paulhus-Gosselin will be hounding Draper all day. If
he gets the upper hand in this matchup
throughout the day, the Cougars will have little to no chance at
pulling off
the upset. Davidson played incredible
defense against Furman (especially in limiting the Paladins to 15 first
half
points), so Bobby Cremins will have to come up with a way to beat
Paulhus-Gosselin
and the rest of the Wildcat wall. It
certainly won’t be easy, so the Cougars will have to be patient and
wait to
pull the trigger until they find good looks at the basket.
Decisive
Factor
Davidson has
to be feeling good about taking care of
business with ease earlier in the evening, and then watching College of Charleston
play an epic thriller. Not only did it
go into overtime, but it was one of the most emotionally-draining
conference
semi-finals I’ve ever seen.
If any team
can recover from such a game in less than 24
hours, the Cougars are not it. They’ve
been going just seven deep the entire
year and that will not change in the midst of the conference tournament. Cremins will go with what got him here,
whether they have gas in the tank or not.
Davidson will
try to lure the Cougars into playing as
hectic of a pace as took place throughout the Charleston-Appalachian
game. Charleston,
meanwhile, will have to slow things down and keep everything under
control.
Charleston must use
the energy of the hometown crowd to spur them on to a good start. If the Cougars fall behind early, it will
tough to come back. The Wildcats have
absolutely worn teams down in the second halves of games this season,
and they
have a good chance of doing the same to the Cougars—especially if the
Cougars
find themselves trailing to begin with.
Prediction
Davidson 79, College of Charleston 74
--Rick Dimon
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