McGrath: Curry-less Davidson not much of rematch for Zags
JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
It was one of those NCAA tournament games that compel you to remember where you were and what you were doing.
Davidson 82, Gonzaga 76.
I watched from a hotel-lobby sports bar in downtown Denver, where Washington State was preparing for its second-round game after beating Winthrop. The barkeeps wore striped referees’ jerseys, and there were plenty of tournament-related specials on the menu. But tipoff for Davidson-Gonzaga had been 10:30 a.m. Mountain time, a little too early to open up a beer tab on a weekday. Even in Denver.
The Cougars would go on to advance past Notre Dame the following day, but the talk of the town – the talk of the tournament – was that first-round game in Raleigh, N.C., where Gonzaga was eliminated at the hands of Davidson. Eliminated, more precisely, at the hand of sweet-shooting guard Stephen Curry. He scored 30 of his 40 points in the second half, hitting 6 of 7 beyond the arc, enabling the Wildcats to recover from a 56-45 deficit.
Although they won by six points, the margin was fattened by Gonzaga’s necessary attempts to stop the clock and send Davidson to the free-throw line. With 1:04 remaining, it was 74-74. Anybody’s game.
Afterward, Davidson coach Bob McKillop gave praise to the feathery sophomore who had enthralled basketball fans from coast to coast.
“It was like an opening-night star performance on Broadway,” McKillop said of Curry, “and he was the star.”
This was 20 months ago, and yet it seems like yesterday. Maybe not yesterday for me or you, but yesterday to those touting the Battle of Seattle game between Davidson and Gonzaga on Saturday as a rematch.
A rematch? Ya think?
True, that 2008 NCAA tournament thriller was the first meeting of the schools, and as the KeyArena clash Saturday represents their second meeting, sure, it’s a rematch.
Except Curry has moved on to the Golden State Warriors, who made him the seventh overall selection of the 2009 NBA draft. And the four guys who started alongside Curry in the NCAA tournament also have moved on.
Gonzaga? It counts only two veterans from 2008 among its starters, Matt Bouldin and Steven Gray. If the Bulldogs win on Saturday – and they’re expected not only to win, but to be in position for coach Mark Few to empty the bench midway through the second half – don’t count on Bouldin or Gray equating an early-season victory over a 2-6 team from the Southern Conference as payback for a first-round bouncing from the 2008 NCAA tournament.
I can see the motivation in billing Davidson as a rematch: It’s the only promotional hook there is with the Wildcats, who are in the first-year phase of a post-Curry rebuilding project. After seven critically acclaimed Battles in Seattle, Davidson is the first opponent of Gonzaga that will boast neither Top 20 national ranking nor an affiliation with a prestigious basketball conference.
“Rematch” is an efficient – if not entirely accurate – way of saying: “Watch the Zags take on the school Stephen Curry would be attending if he hadn’t bolted for the NBA!”
But there are certain words in the sports lexicon that peeve me, and “rematch,” when applied to describe an event that has almost nothing in common with a previous event, is at the top of the list.
The NFL typically plays the rematch card during its exhibition season. On those occasions the defending conference champions face each other in August, television ads purport “A Super Bowl Rematch.” Six months after participating in the most hyped single-day event on the planet, two teams are put on an inconsequential stage arranged so the coaches can evaluate rookies and role-seeking journeymen – and the rest of us are supposed to buy it as a rematch?
As if.
Another rematch vehicle is the Christmas Day game between the finalists of the NBA playoffs. This year’s Finals Rematch finds the Cavaliers taking on the Lakers, with bragging rights at stake about ... uh, not much. By the time the 2010 NBA Finals are decided, in the middle of June, the world will little remember the Yuletide clash of last season’s titans.
Rematches are legitimate in Grand Slam tennis events and in any Preakness pitting a pair of horses who ran away from the field in the Kentucky Derby, and, of course, in boxing.
The Thrilla in Manilla? That was a rematch. The Battle in Seattle? Not so much.
Still, Saturday should be fun – a chance to enjoy basketball in a building appreciated for its warmth, coziness, potential for raucous noise and any other charm that befuddles NBA commissioner David Stern. And Gonzaga fans on the west side of the mountains will get to savor the experience of a Gonzaga game, without having to cross the east side of the mountains.
As soon as time expires, those fans might want to take a photo of the scoreboard, to help them remember what could have been – what should have been – before Stephen Curry came to mistake an arena in Raleigh for the largest theater on Broadway.
john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com
