Southern Conference Basketball

Everyone who watches college basketball has an opinion on who the best player is.

This year, it is a toss-up, or so they say. The top candidates this year include Tyler Hansbrough, Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, and D.J Augustin.

These guys are good, but the best player in the country is Davidson's Stephen Curry.

Stephen Curry played incredible before the tournament, averaging 25 points a game. He started the NCAA tournament off with a 40-point performance against Gonzaga. Georgetown did not do much better giving up 30 points, and Wisconson gave up 33. Kansas held him to his average at 25 points.

That is 32 points a game in the NCAA tournament against teams all ranked above his.

Another stat for him is that in those four games, he had a total of five turnovers. He has proved he can play with the big boys, but unlike Michael Beasley (who scores 26 points a game) Curry makes his teammates better. He doesn't score all of the time, but when he gets the ball, he usually does.

He also has a 48.3 percent FG percentage, and a 43.9 percent three-point percentage. He shoots 89 percent from the free-throw line.

My second candidate for player of the year is Michael Beasley. Yes, I know, his team lost in the second round, but he is the second best player in the country. He averages 26.2 points a game and 12 rebounds a game. He has been held under 10 points once, by Xavier. 

Though Stephen Curry has not been held under 10 points this year, Beasley is still equally important. He has 29 double-doubles this year and he is a freshman. He is basically his whole team.

The other canidates are good, but not as good as Curry and Beasley. Hansbrough has Lawson and others, Love has Collison and others, Augustin has James and Abrams and Douglas-Roberts has the whole Memphis crew.

Curry and Beasley are the most talented guys on their teams, and show it often. They both can't be stopped by quality opponents, and they both do the amazing. I haven't seen the others do all of those three things.

Those guys have good crews and are good, but Curry and Beasley are great.

While watching the first two rounds of March Madness this weekend, I got in the mood to think back to all of my favorite Cinderella stories and buzzer beaters. 

One of my favorite aspects of college hoops is the fact that there are over 300 Division I Men's Basketball programs. Moreover, the fan base of each team is not always as geographically finite as the boundary of your average professional sports franchise. 

For instance, I am a Syracuse Orange fan because of family ties, despite growing up during a great stretch for more local favorites (UMass and UConn). 

Don't be afraid to add heart wrenching stories of defeat. Anything goes. Whether you're a George Mason fan or alumnus of Florida.

Whether you have celebrated recent success, or your team is going through a drought, and March forces you to go through your own catalogue of mental highlights from yesteryear... we all have a favorite moment, story, or team, that they recall every year, around this time.

Now's your chance to share your favorite college hoop memories with the rest of us.  This experiment will only be as strong as the contributions.  So, comment early and reply often. 

I'd love to get a dialogue going about some of our favorite moments (or in some cases, least favorite moments).

Now for our Disclaimer:

I know we sometimes get heated when discussing our favorite/most hated teams, but let's try to keep it respectful and offer solid commentary when posting. 

Please refrain from posts that simply state, "Duke sucks" (whether I may personally agree or not) or "UCLA rocks." If they do not add constructively to the conversation, then please leave them out. 

I'm not saying we can't sling a little mud at the programs we "hate", but make sure to add some content to the argument as well. 

Get creative—tell us where you were, how it happened, how you celebrated.  Anything you'd like, but be sure to add to the conversation and give specifics (years are especially helpful if at all possible).

Just a score or two: University of Akron 65, Florida State 60. Southern Illinois 69, Oklahoma State 53. Creighton 74, URI 73. Syracuse roughing up Robert Morris, 87-81?

I know its just the NIT, but do the BCS & "Big State U" teams only give their best in the "Big Dance"? It makes me sick to hear the sanctimonious posturing and the condescending attitude of the Network "talking heads" and "former" Coaches trumpet the notion that the A-10, Missouri Valley, MAC, WCC, and others are "nice little leagues" made up of schools in the flyover states, that at times really play well and are able to defeat the "heavyweights" of the Big Ten, Big East, Pac-10, ACC, SEC, and Big XII on rare occasions when one of their "Powers" has a "down year", a "bad break," or a player scandal.

Most of the successful "Mid-Majors" will play "anybody, anywhere, anytime" and offer deserving opponents a home-and-home series to be fair about it. Until the last decade or so most of their players were not as skilled, athletic, or jumbo sized as the "factory" schools. Their student/athletes did however, stay around to gain experience, meld into the college experience, and graduate. Coaches were valued and judged by their knowledge of the game, teaching ability, and graduation rate rather than their wins & losses.

The two "P's" population and parity combined with the increase from 32 to 64 teams in the NCAA D-I basketball tourney made it possible for smaller schools to game fame and entice players. and the term "Mid-Majors came about. The exposure that Gonzaga University gained when reaching the Elite Eight and George Mason going to the Final Four, for example, are just two of the more well-known achievements of the mids.

The play of the Butlers, Davidsons, Southern Illinois, Creightons, Valpo's, St. Joes, and others have shown sports fans that "David slaying Goliath" happens far more than one suspects. Gonzaga is in the "dance" for the tenth straight year. How many of the BCS schools can make that claim?

So sit back and enjoy watching the greatest two weeks in sports, as all sixty-four teams start out with a clean slate and teams like, Butler, Drake, Gonzaga, St, Joes, San Diego, Davidson and others proudly carry the "Mid-Major" banner to more glory. Success and luv to the Schools I had to leave out for lack of space, poor memory, or individual preference.

That's right, the Davidson Wildcats—who struck fear into Maryland before losing 82-70 in last year's first round—could be wearing this year's Cinderella slipper. The Wildcats would have been on the proverbial bubble of teams, but they took matters out of the NCAA's hands by finishing off a perfect 23-0 streak through the Southern Conference and defeating Elon in the tourney final.

By now, Charlotte native and leading scorer Stephen Curry who some how escaped the scholarship offers of all the ACC schools mainly due to his teenage and less than physical looks is being recognized as one of the best players in the country, and rightfully so. He averaged 25.1 points per game and shot 43.8 percent from 3-point range. He's fine inside the arc, too, making 48.6 percent from the field and 89.8 percent from the line. Don't be fooled this is more than one man team though.

Davidson hung within 12 points of three final four opponents in UNC, UCLA, and Duke, so they are definitely battle tested. That was before they took dominance to a new level, smothering the SoCon like they were a Top 10 team.

The Wildcats should be considered to make a run in the tournament partally due to point guard Jason Richards. He averaged 12.6 points and a nation-leading eight assists per game. He also showed he could play with the best when he averaged 13.0 points and 8.7 assists in the three games vs. UCLA, Duke and North Carolina. Davidson showed in early-season nonconference close calls against those three teams that it can play with the nation's best.

The first victim should go down right down the road from the Davidson campus in nearby Raleigh, NC in fellow Mid-Major Gonzaga. Gonzaga would be tipping off around approximately 9 AM pacific time against the Wildcats, having journeyed all the way from Spokane, Washington. We all know this scenario from last year when Stanford played terribly in it's first round matchup under similar circumstances.

After that who knows against probably Georgetown? Georgetown has shown it has difficulty with guard oriented teams such as Villanova. In one of the Nova games Roy Hibbert was held scoreless. The game also ended on a controversial foul call that basically handed the Hoyas the game.

After that the Wildcats should face USC, another huge sleeper which would be a great matchup between O.J. Mayo and Stephen Curry. Either way Davidson could make a George Mason type run through this tournament.

The Wildcats didn't lose a game to a Southern Conference team in the regular season or in the conference tournament. The only other team to do that this season was Memphis in Conference USA.

This year's men's NCAA Tournament features quite possibly the worst Field of 65 there has ever been.

If ever there was a year for a low seed (seeded 6 through 16) to reach the Sweet Sixteen, it's 2008.

Davidson went undefeated in the Southern Division of the Southern Conference, but has yet to capture the attention of the majority of America.

The Wildcats have one of the best shooting guards in the NCAA in Stephen Curry, and should make a strong push for the Sweet Sixteen—and possibly beyond.

The Wildcats are also the hottest team in the country right now, as they have won 22 games in a row, all but three by double digits. Head coach Bob McKillop thinks that their undefeated conference play this year won't go unrecognized:

"I think college coaches understand what a 20-0 conference record is," he says. "Every night there are no gimmes, there are no guarantees. So for 20 games we were able to come out on top. Some teams can do it for 10, for 12, for 14, for 16. I think 20 is quite an accomplishment."

The leader on this Davidson team is obviously Curry. Curry won the Player of the Year award in the Southern Conference, and also won the respect of his coach.

Curry averages 25.2 points per game. He is the eighth-best free throw shooter in the NCAA (89.6 percent), the second best in three-pointers made (134), and third in three-pointers per game (4.3).

While Curry is definitely the star, though, it doesn't mean that the Wildcats are one-dimensional.

Jason Richards, a senior point guard, leads the NCAA with 7.9 assists per game. He is a playmaker who knows how to find the open man. Richards averages 13 points per game and made 52 three-pointers this year.

He also has the respect of his coach:

"He's the consummate quarterback," McKillop of Richards. "He's a guy that understands our system, executes our system, gets the ball to the right player at the right time."

There is also the talented Max Paulhus Gosselin. Gosselin is a superb defensive player and rarely turns the ball over.

When we move to the Davidson frontcourt, we find more of the same: playmakers.

Andrew Lovedale, Boris Meno, and Thomas Sander are the veteran post players. All three can change a game by themselves if given the chance.

Davidson is clearly a young, fast team that loves the outside shot. They will control the tempo of any game they're in. They're in great physical condition, and they have a coach who believes in them.

I expect them to beat Gonzaga, and then I expect them to upset the Georgetown Hoyas in a close game.