Stephen Curry's last play in the 2008 NCAA Tournament ended with the ball in Jason Richards' hands. Kansas had crowded the player everyone expected to shoot. Richards took the attempt that ended Davidson's season, and the argument about Curry's decision began.
Davidson trailed Kansas 59-57 on March 30. After a Kansas miss, the Wildcats had a final chance to reach the Final Four. The Associated Press account published by Davidson describes two defenders taking away Curry's shot. He passed to Richards, whose long attempt missed. Kansas advanced. Davidson's season ended.
Knowing who Curry became makes the temptation almost irresistible. Give him the ball, clear everyone out and let the future explain why the shot belongs to him. Except that the defenders in Detroit were responding to the player in front of them. They had an opinion about who should shoot, too.
I want to judge that possession with Kansas included in the discussion. Curry had already made himself the problem the Jayhawks needed to solve.
The other guard had earned his place
Richards can disappear in a retelling built around Curry's later fame. Davidson's regional-final preview supplies a useful correction. Richards was the first player in program history with 1,000 points and 600 assists. That is a substantial college career to compress into the fellow who missed the last shot.
The distinction affects how we discuss the choice. Davidson had a productive senior guard available when its leading scorer was crowded. A reader can still question the spacing, the time used or the difficulty of Richards' attempt. Those are basketball objections worth examining. Saying the wrong person had the ball is a much less complete argument.
Richards had spent the season making these decisions for Davidson. Now Curry had drawn the second defender, and Richards had to take the shot. I can dislike a long attempt with the season on the line and still understand why the ball reached him.
When I read CBR's current recruiting rankings, Richards is a useful player to remember. The guard beside the celebrated scorer may eventually have to take the shot everyone remembers. Davidson had a senior with a substantial record in that job.
There was plenty of evidence before Kansas
Curry arrived at that regional final with a tournament already worth remembering. In the Wisconsin victory, he scored 33 points and Davidson won 73-56. The contemporaneous AP report records an extraordinary second half. Curry scored 22 after the break while Wisconsin scored 20 as a team.
That performance explains why readers want the final Kansas possession back. It also explains why Kansas had such a strong reason to get the ball away from him. A great performance invites the next opponent to change the problem.
The Wisconsin game had another detail worth keeping. Davidson's trustees paid for students' travel, tickets and accommodation for the trip to Detroit, according to that report. A few hundred students made the 11-hour bus ride. The trustees had given a small college a way to follow its team to Detroit.
There was a season behind those two weekends as well. Davidson's archived Curry biography records 21.5 points per game in his freshman year. His scoring did not begin when the national tournament audience found it. The school had been watching the work accumulate.
Davidson had a freshman season of evidence before Curry scored those 33 against Wisconsin. The rest of the country was catching up during the tournament. Richards had been playing beside him all along.
A result can leave the question open
I would rather have Curry looking to create the final opportunity than deliberately take him out of the play. That still leaves several possible good outcomes. He can shoot, draw a second defender or pass to a teammate with room. Calling all but the first a failure would make him easier to guard.
The CBR discussion of UConn and St. John's asks whether a team can protect a possession long enough to reach its intended shot. Davidson presents the next difficulty. Once the defense removes that shot, how much trust does the offense have in the person receiving the pass?
There is a limit to what this account establishes. A written game report gives us the double-team, the pass and the miss. It does not give us the whole play call or every instruction Bob McKillop delivered. Assigning a precise alternative that certainly would have worked would require evidence we do not have.
Curry finished with 25 points against Kansas. He had already given Davidson a chance to play that Sunday. Richards had helped build the team capable of reaching it.
If you follow Davidson's recruiting page, keep both jobs in mind when considering its next guards. Richards had supplied hundreds of assists before that Sunday. On Davidson's last possession, Curry was the one trusting him with the shot.
