Six games. Five cities. Sixteen days. Iowa, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Cleveland State, Davidson and Duquesne. There are three, maybe four NCAA Tournament teams in there. WVU played one of those four at home, one on the road and two in “neutral” environments that felt at times like road games. The Mountaineers are 3-2 thus far and finish Saturday at Duquesne. It hasn’t been easy and hasn’t gotten easier.
Sonya Curry’s son didn’t have it for most of Tuesday night’s Jimmy V Classic, but found it when it mattered most.
“Steph tried to swing for the fences early. Maybe he tried a little too hard in his first time here,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. McKillop, a native of Queens and the Holy Trinity and Long Island Lutheran coach in the ’70s and ’80s, was also making his Garden debut.
“But the Steph Curry I know came out those last four minutes,” McKillop said. “He never, ever quit on himself, or his team.”
I sat behind the Davidson radio crew and next to a Davidson Internet guy. They were amazed at what they saw … and they see the kid every game.
The Mountaineers were respectful, but completely frustrated afterward because, in truth, if Curry doesn’t make one of his three straight 3s — to tie the score, to cut a four-point lead to one and then to go from one down to two up — they win. And what a win it would have been given the circumstances.
“We’re without our two starting guards and that’s a heck of a team. That’s a top 25 team,” Mountaineers Coach Bob Huggins said. “Take anybody’s two starting guards away – I don’t care who it is – and play that team and see what happens.”
What happened was WVU (6-2) had the game in its short-handed grasp until Curry made consecutive 3-pointer in the final moments and scored 13 of his team’s final 15 points.
You can almost disregard the first half because it was such a strange situation and one the Mountaineers didn’t really expect. Huggins tried everything and to be down just seven at the half was actually kind of good. He pared things down in the second half and WVU did everything but win.
The extent of shoulder injuries to Alex Ruoff and Joe Mazzulla are unknown and both are in a situation where it can get much worse if they don’t allow it to get better. Of course, the veteran presence is needed, especially in the backcourt as WVU now has a pretty valuable lession about its margin of error.