Game offers an intriguing answer to ‘Who will replace Curry?’

Updated 5:10 p.m.
By MICHAEL KRUSE
Special to DavidsonNews.net

INDIANAPOLIS – The Davidson men’s basketball team didn’t get a win Saturday afternoon, but what happened in the Cats’ season opener here at Hinkle Fieldhouse wasn’t a total loss.

The Wildcats played 10th-ranked Butler even for much of the game before losing 73-62 before a crowd of 6,713. Sophomore forward Ben Allison led the Wildcats with 13 points and seven rebounds. Junior point guard Brendan McKillop scored 11 and had five rebounds and three assists in 38 minutes.

Senior forward Steve Rossiter and freshman guard JP Kuhlman both had nine and freshman forward Jake Cohen added eight. Kuhlman had a team-best six assists.

“We’re going to be a work in progress the whole year,” coach Bob McKillop said after the game in a hallway in Hinkle. “But I’m encouraged. I love our fight.”

This, after all, was a game billed with a simple storyline around the country: Davidson doesn’t have Stephen Curry anymore. Here was the beginning of the so-called post-Curry era at Davidson.

And what’s Davidson’s basketball team going to be without the Wildcat All-American and current Golden State Warrior?

Cetainly not bad.

Maybe even pretty darn good.

Against Butler, a team some analysts are picking to go to the Final Four, Davidson had leads in a fine first half of 13-6, 20-10 and 33-23 – until a burst from Butler in the last three minutes gave the Bulldogs a 37-35 lead at the break.

Even so, the Wildcats did a list of things that Davidson basketball teams typically do, when they’re right, no matter the year, no matter the names on the roster.

They drew charges. They made their free throws. They scored points by creating opportunities to score points and then converting those opportunities. Screens. Cuts. And they answered big shots from their opponents with big shots of their own.

‘EQUAL OPPORTUNITY’ OFFENSE

Curry scored more than 28 points a game last year. No one player is going to score like that for this team. During the preseason, longtime Davidson coach Bob McKillop has often said this team would need to rely on a more equal-opportunity offense.

Look: McKillop played 11 guys in the first half. He played 10 guys in the first 10 minutes. He played nine guys in the first seven.

In the first half, two Wildcats scored five points, two Wildcats scored six, and one Wildcat scored 11. The balanced scoring continued in the second half.

Who’s going to “replace” Stephen Curry?

Rossiter is. Allison is. Brendan McKillop is. Will Archambault is. Bryant Barr is. Kuhlman is. Cohen is. Will Reigel is. Frank Ben-Eze is. Dan Nelms is.

All of them.

“I’m encouraged and disappointed at the same time,” Rossiter said outside the team’s locker room on the way to the bus to the airport for the flight back home.

“There were points today when it was all clicking,” he said. “We saw what we could do.”

Michael Kruse writes about Davidson basketball at 16point8.blogspot.com.

What’s next?

Davidson will be back on the court Thursday, Nov. 12, facing South Florida in the Charleston Classic. Game time is 7 p.m. Rounds 2 and 3 of the tournament will be Nov. 20 and 22.