Click here for the Post and Courier's Andrew Miller's article about the game. The guys played their hearts out and there is still a chance at a NIT bid. It is truly remarkable what this team has accomplished this season. They went from being a 3-6 team labeled and chanted by Davidson fans during the game as being "over-rated" to becoming one of the best teams in the SoCon that reached the SoCon Finals.
(Photo from Mic Smith at the Post and Courier)
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Cougars fall short
Curry steals show as Davidson captures SoCon crown
By ANDREW MILLER
The Post and Courier
College of Charleston guard Dontaye Draper just didn't have one more heroic performance left in him.
Less than 24 hours after scoring a career-high 38 points in an overtime victory over Appalachian State, Draper didn't have the energy to mount another Herculean effort in Saturday night's Southern Conference championship matchup with Davidson.
Tournament MVP Stephen Curry poured in 29 points and Boris Meno added 14 points and 10 rebounds to lead Davidson past the College of Charleston, 72-65, in front of a crowd of 8,009 at the North Charleston Coliseum.
Davidson (29-4) earned its second straight SoCon Tournament title and earned the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The College of Charleston, which still has an outside shot at an NIT bid, is 22-11 in Bobby Cremins' first season as head coach.
Draper, who finished with just eight points in the championship game, had been virtually unstoppable in his two previous tournament games against Georgia Southern and
Appalachian State where he totaled 61 points.
The Wildcats were determined to make someone else on the Cougars team beat them, all the time making Draper work for everything he got, hoping that the Baltimore native would tire out.
It proved to be a successful strategy. Draper connected on his first two shots from the floor, but then failed to make a field goal the rest of the game.
"They did a good job of guarding me," Draper said. "They made me work for everything I did tonight. It didn't matter what I did. Bringing the ball up. Coming off of screens. Shadowing me. Everything. Nothing came easy for me and it took a lot of energy out of me.
"It was a mind game out there for me. I kept telling myself I wasn't tired, but my legs were telling me something different. I tried to fight through it, but my shots were falling short."
Cremins realized early on that Draper wasn't playing with the energy he had shown during the Cougars first two games in the tournament. "There's no doubt that Dontaye wasn't himself tonight," Cremins said. "Davidson is a very smart basketball team and they were determined to make someone besides Dontaye Draper beat them tonight. They did a good job of just wearing Dontaye down."
Even with Draper having an uncharacteristic outing, the rest of the Cougars more than carried their share of the scoring load.
Jermaine Johnson and David Lawrence each had 13 points and Tony White Jr., and Josh Jackson came off the bench to add nine points each. The Cougars shot 51 percent from the field.
"We knew that other guys were going to have to step up," Cremins said. "We just needed to swing the ball and find the open man. I thought we had enough players to do it and we had other guys step up and play well for us."
The trouble for the Cougars were turnovers. The Cougars committed 21 for the game, including 12 in the first 15 minutes.
"Turnovers killed us," Draper said. "We had way too many. They came at crucial times, too. I had a bad one in the second half. You can't turn the ball over as much as we did and expect to beat a team as good as Davidson."
It was a first half of runs for both teams as the lead switched hands four times and was tied on five other occasions.
Curry ignited a late run with back-to-back baskets in the final 90 seconds of the half to give the Wildcats a 37-35 lead at intermission.
The Cougars came out sluggish in the second half, missing their first three shots and turning the ball over two more times on their first five possessions.Curry's layup gave the Wildcats their biggest lead, 47-39, with 15:07 left.
Then the Cougars appeared to find their legs. Charleston outscored the Wildcats, 17-4, over the next five minutes and took their biggest lead, 56-51, on Lawrence's 15-foot jumper with 9:28 left.
"We had our chance right there to put them away," Cremins said. "I honestly thought we had a chance right there."
But it was Wildcats who found an extra gear with a 13-3 run of their own and grabbed a 64-59 lead on Thomas Sanders' layup with 4:00 left in the game.
The Cougars got as close as 64-62 on Philip McCandies free throw with 1:45 left. But after a timeout, Davidson point guard Jason Richards scored on a beautiful back-door play to put the Wildcats ahead 66-62 with 1:16 left.
The Cougars missed their next three shots from the field and as the buzzer sounded the Wildcats celebrated their fourth SoCon Tournament title in the last decade.
"It hurts," Draper said. "I know this is probably my last game, so it hurts."
Reach Andrew Miller at 937-5599 or apmiller@postandcourier.com.
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