Oral history: Steph Curry's mark on Davidson, NCAA tournament NCAA.com
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PRESENTED BY Just eight years ago, Steph Curry led the Davidson Wildcats of the Southern Conference on a magical NCAA tournament run to the Elite 8, where they fell to eventual champion Kansas. Curry flashed his smile and skills to the basketball world in those two weeks, a baby-faced assassin who gave a powerful glimpse of his potential. Others have played a role in helping an unheralded program from a smaller conference make magic in March. But they didn’t go on to become arguably the best player in the world. This is hindsight, of course, but others did not become Steph Curry. NCAA.com talked to those who knew him years before he became this global star and world champion. Here's what they had to say about Curry, who was barely 6 feet tall and weighed less than 150 pounds as a high school junior. (Curry committed nine turnovers in the first half of his college debut, against Eastern Michigan. He finished with 13, but Davidson won 81-77. The next night he scored 32 points against Michigan. Curry averaged 21.5 points per game as a freshman as Davidson won the Southern Conference and finished with a 29-7 record. He made 122 of 299 3-pointers (40.8 percent) and had as many turnovers as assists (95). He scored 30 points in a NCAA Tournament first round loss to Maryland. He was named the Southern Conference Rookie of the Year) (Early in his sophomore season, Curry was having trouble with his right wrist. Season-ending surgery was an option. He met with his coach, father, the team trainer and senior teammates Richards, Boris Meno and Thomas Sander after an early season practice in the Time Warner Cable Arena in downtown Charlotte (home of the NBA’s Hornets). (Davidson won the Southern Conference again in 2007-08 and earned a No. 10 seed in the Midwest Regional, with its first two games in Raleigh, 156 miles east of campus. The Wildcats defeated No. 7 Gonzaga 82-76 in the first round and No. 2 Georgetown 80-74 in the second round. Curry scored 40 points on 14 of 22 shooting, with eight 3-pointers, against Gonzaga. He had 30 points and five assists in the upset of the Hoyas. Richards scored 35 points in the two games. Davidson crushed No. 3 Wisconsin in the Sweet 16 at Ford Field in Detroit. Curry hit half his shots in the 17-point rout and poured in 33 points. Two days later, Kansas, with four future NBA players on the roster, forced Curry into 9 of 25 shooting, and his lowest-scoring output of the tournament - 25 points. On the final possession, Curry brought the ball up the court, a defender stopped him near the top-of-the-key, he passed to Richards who missed a long 3-pointer at the buzzer. It remains one of the best Cinderella runs in NCAA Tournament history and one of the top individual performances, impacted perhaps even more by Curry’s current status as arguably the best player in the world.) In three seasons at Davidson, Curry scored 2,635 points for an average of 25.3 points per game. He hit 414 of 1004 3-pointers (41.2 percent), averaged 4.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. He guided Davidson to an 85-23 overall record and a 55-3 conference mark. The Wildcats won the 2008-09 SoCon regular season title, but lost to College of Charleston in the semifinals of the conference tournament and were denied another NCAA tournament appearance. Curry entered the NBA Draft and the Golden State Warriors selected him seventh in the first round. The Minnesota Timberwolves drafted point guards Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn with the fifth and sixth picks.
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