Tom Talks

It was cool hanging around Davidson ... and the White Lobster

Davidson guard Bryant Barr is the White Lobster. As you know, a name such as White Lobster has to be earned. You can’t go to your teammates and say, "I’m White Lobster, call me White Lobster, please, OK?"

Barr did not do this.

Barr earned the moniker.

After hitting only two baskets in the NCAA tournament and failing to score in the first half Sunday, Barr all by himself stopped Kansas from taking control of the game.

The Wildcats were tired. You could see it in Stephen Curry and Jason Richards, their stars. So Barr pops a 3-pointer from the extreme left corner. He pops another from the same spot, almost out of bounds. He hits a third.

In 2 minutes, 18 seconds, he hits three 3-pointers.

But wait. Are you typecasting the White Lobster? Are you saying, all he can do is shoot from far away?

My friends do not underestimate the White Lobster. Yes, he is one of the 25 best shooters to emerge from Falmouth, Maine.

But he is more. He goes to the hoop and the ball goes off the glass and in. He shoots four times in the second half and makes them all. In nine second-half minutes, he scores 11 points.

And he’s only a sophomore. So unless he leaves school early, expect to hear the name for two more seasons.

WL was good. And those were gutsy shots he took in a game of this import in front of anybody.

But even though this is Curry’s team, Curry and Richards, everybody has a role and everybody plays it well.

Max Paulhus Gosselin, a 6-6 junior guard, can play defense for anybody.

Kansas has all those future NBA studs going high beneath the hoop, and Davidson junior forward Andrew Lovedale hangs and leaps and bumps with the best of them.

Senior forward Thomas Sander has a broken right thumb. When you shake hands with him after the game, he quickly offers his left. He sets his picks and goes to the basket and scores eight points and has two one-hand assists and one one-hand steal.

This was a cool team to be around.

I watched most of the Georgetown game (I had come from the regional in Washington) and saw them beat Wisconsin and lost to Kansas.

Felt like an honor to watch them and talk to them and hang with some of their fans at Ford Field and, briefly, at the Detroit Brewing Co., their downtown headquarters here.

Davidson – thanks.

Let’s do this again.

Curry's amazing

   Davidson's Stephen Curry is one of his last nine, unofficially, and then he nails it. Kansas by a mere two. Amazing.

You remember Kaun, right?

   Kansas center Sasha Kaun can’t be stopped. He has eight points and three rebounds and has yet to miss a field goal attempt.
   I thought Sasha Kaun was a singer.
   Remember, “Sasha Kaun, Sasha Kaun”?

Wildcats' play: 'Can you believe this?'

   At halftime I saw a lot of people smiling and asking “Can you believe this?” or spreading their arms as if to say, “Amazing.”
   By people, I mean us, sportswriters and broadcasters.
   If there’s a story to the first half, it’s this.
   Davidson didn’t deviate. The Wildcats were steadfast in clinging to their system. Curry wouldn’t be hurried and he was a microcosm of his team. They would not be rushed, not by Kansas guard Brandon Rush or anybody else.
   Kansas leads 30-28 at the half.
   Only nine players scored in the first half, and Curry led them all with 15 points.
   Davidson’s best stat: It turned the ball over three times to nine for Kansas.
   Davidson’s worst stat: It was outrebounded 22-13.
   Best reason for hope: Against Wisconsin, the Wildcats also were hammered on the boards in the first half. In the second half, they outrebounded the bigger Badgers.

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   A reader writes to say that Kansas guard Mario Chalmers attended Charlotte’s Elizabeth Traditional Elementary for a year. Chalmers, who played his high school ball in Anchorage, Alaska, is a junior. He was the Jayhawks’ best player in the first half with 11 points on only five field goal attempts.

Click here for a slideshow from the game

'Whoa' what a game so far

   Stephen Curry missed his first shot, his second, his third, his fourth and his fifth. Most were close; none went in.
   Yet, his Wildcats led 9-6.
   Sean May, the Charlotte Bobcats forward, made a good point in an interview Saturday. He said Davidson is Curry’s team and that it’s evident his teammates accept it. So, yeah, keep shooting.
   And he did. Curry hit a three, a hanging, which way is he going two and another three. After the two, you looked at the guy next to you and went, “Whoa.” We all did.
   And with 5:45 remaining in the first half, Davidson leads 23-21.

Tension rises as Wildcats-Jayhawks tip off

   Kansas coach Bill Self described the atmosphere in Ford Field as indifferent, but he was talking about Friday, not today.
   When the Jayhawks run onto the court there is serious noise. And when, a few minutes later, Davidson enters, the crowd is even louder. There is a quality to the Davidson greeting that you have to hear, and we all have at some point, to understand. There is an edge to it – hopeful, anticipatory and utterly alive.
   When Stephen Curry is introduced, the noise is even louder.
    But only Max Paulhus Gosselin has his own cheering section. Fans hold a sign with each of the 18 letters in his name.
   The game is 4:11 old and the score is 2-2. Baskets are few, but the tension is enormous.

Curry on fire before game begins

   The Wildcats are 1-0 at Ford Field when Stephen Curry hits the first shot he takes before the game. He hit a short jumper before Friday’s game against Wisconsin.
   About 20 minutes ago, Curry was on the court, ball in hand. His first shot was a lay-up line dunk. I’m not counting that. Sorry. A dunk is too easy, provided you can dunk. It tells you nothing.
   Curry has the ball again and this time he doesn’t go to the basket. He pulls up outside the free throw line, lets the ball go and – the shot is perfect.
   As his teammates leave the court to run to the locker room, Curry shoots for the CBS cameraman. Curry is about 12 feet from the basket and the cameraman is about a foot from Curry. You better hope Kansas defenders don’t cling to him like this.
   Curry hits a J. The camera captures the image. Then he misses. The camera gets that one, too. Then he hits two and misses again.
   Yet his shot is so soft and his technique so consistent that every miss is a surprise. You want to blame the basket or the cameraman.
    Before Curry joins his teammates, he takes six more shots. There is no doubt where each is going. Each goes in.

Scoping out scene around Detroit, Ford Field

   At 2:30 Sunday afternoon, I left the press at Ford Field and looked for humans. Many of them had gathered across the street at Comerica Park, where on Monday the Detroit Tigers, the new darlings of the American League, will play Kansas City.
   Lots of people were doing what I planned to, which is poking their faces against the gates and looking for signs of spring. I wanted to see grass, and the fourth gate I tried, I did. It was beautiful. There was smooth otherworldly green grass broken up only by smooth brown dirt basepaths.
   And speaking of broken up, there was a statue of Ty Cobb, and even in the statue his spikes were high, which means he was trying to break up a double play or spike somebody because he could. I would love to see the reaction of the fielder awaiting the throw.
   Of course there was a little boy and his dad peering into the ballpark. Maybe they, too, were looking for spring -- despite the winter coats they were wearing.

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After returning to Ford Field, I still was not in the mood for media. The truth is, I kind of like to be alone, especially after so many days and weeks around others. Solitude is easy to find at Ford Field. I found it in Section 347, Row 21, seat 1, the top row at one end of the court.
   It is a terrible seat, I must say. It would be like going to the top of Charlotte’s biggest building – I better not say which one because I’ve been gone most of the last two weeks and some bank might have built a new one.
   And once you get to the top of the building, you look down and see what could be people performing an act that could be dribbling.
   But when you move toward midcourt the view improves markedly. I sat in the upper rows of the sections in which the Davidson fans will sit today. The seats aren’t bad.

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In the You Know You Are Old Department: You know you’re old when, on Saturday night on the road, you walk two blocks to a neighborhood restaurant and eat clam chowder and Lake Superior – an underrated lake, I must say – whitefish while watching the first half of the North Carolina-Louisville game on a little TV in the corner of the room.
    And you leave at halftime and go back to your hotel room to watch the second half. Then you fall asleep and wake up 9½ hours later thinking, “Man, that was a pretty good night.”

Hey Michigan - Davidson's in SoCon, too

   Two Davidson fans went to Ann Arbor Saturday and they wore their Davidson garb. The Michigan fans were nice to them. Congratulated them on their school’s work in the tournament and didn’t hold Appalachian State’s upset victory of the Wolverines last fall against them.
   So maybe what coaches tell little kids is true and sports do promote fellowship and good will.
    Or maybe the fans don’t realize that Davidson and Appalachian State play in the same conference.

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Talking to fans and writers and broadcasters in Detroit two things are apparent. The first is that everybody who does not have a lifelong or blood connection to Kansas is pulling for Davidson. The other is that nobody is giving the Wildcats a chance to win.
   I’m not going to offer a prediction other than to say that what applied for the Jay hawks in their easy victory against Villanova will not necessarily apply against the Wildcats. And what worked for Davidson against the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds will not necessarily work against top-seeded Kansas.
   Teams start over every game. There is no momentum.
   And, personally, I make my picks before the tournament and, once made, I don’t change them. I had Wisconsin advancing to the Final four.
   Moreover, I want to enjoy this game and appreciate the moment and recognize the possibilities. If the favorite always wins, what fun would the tournament be? If we know what we’re going to see, why show up?
   I wouldn’t be here. Davidson wouldn’t, either.

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Talked to Kansas guard Mario Chalmers Saturday. He says he has relatives in North Carolina, and one day they brought him to Grady Cole Center to shoot baskets. Grady Cole is where the Charlotte Hornets practiced and, as Chalmers was walking in, Hornet guard Dell and Stephen Curry were walking out.
   There have been many questions about Stephen’s greatness, and why nobody saw it coming as recently as two years ago.
   So I asked Chalmers if he could tell at Grady Cole that Curry would someday be great.
   “No,” he said.

LeBron gets ticket to see Curry, Davidson play

Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James told Davidson he wanted a ticket to "see the kid play."

He was talking, of course, about Stephen Curry.

Certain names are linked to every school that needs a coach, and one of them will be Davidson coach Bob McKillop. It doesn’t matter if McKillop is interested or if the school is. The rumors will persist. Indiana? South Carolina?

Why wouldn’t a school that needs a coach take at least a long look at McKillop? His recruiting pool is limited; if you’re not a student, you don’t get in. Players don’t get in trouble, they graduate and they win. The coach comes with victories and without baggage.

The ACC and the Southern Conference each have a team in the Elite Eight. So if the ACC’s Virginia Tech gets to complain about not being included in the basketball tournament, why don’t Georgia Southern, Chattanooga and Appalachian State?

I’ve watched two football games in Ford Field, a Super Bowl and a Carolina Panther victory against the Detroit Lions. In the latter, Chris Weinke replaced injured Jake Delhomme on the final drive and led the Panthers to victory.

I couldn’t help but think as I watched Curry pop from 22 feet that he might have shot from the same spot on which Weinke threw the touchdown pass to Ricky Proehl.

Curry doesn’t make many mistakes, but his mouth stopped functioning at the end of his news conference and the words that came out were chopped up and nonsensical and he made fun of himself and then Jason Richards made fun of him.

"I’m out of here," Curry finally said.

"Student-athletes you can leave," the moderator said.

I ran into Davidson associate head coach Matt Matheny, whom some enterprising school looking for an up-and-coming coach ought to snatch up, scouting Kansas after Davidson’s victory.

What do I write? I asked.

He extended his arms as wide as he could and smiled.

That’s good enough for me.