With a little more than a minute remaining in Davidson’s Midwest regional first-round game against Gonzaga on Friday, Stephen Curry borrowed a move from his dad.
Not just the arching three-pointer that created a 77-74 gap between Davidson and Gonzaga, but the finger point to the lower section of the RBC Center stands where his parents, Dell and Sonya, sat.
Dell Curry used to point to his father in the stands the same way during a college career at Virginia Tech and 16 seasons in the NBA.
“I guess I feel like my parents did,” Dell Curry said.
He wore a red sweater vest and a beaming smile. These days, Dell said, he’s better known as “Stephen’s dad.”
And he had better get used to it because after 10th-seeded Davidson’s 82-76 victory over seventh-seeded Gonzaga, the Wildcats are the talk of the tournament.
With a shot as smooth as his pops’, sophomore Stephen Curry scored 40 points on 14-of-22 shooting, including 8-for-10 on three-pointers. He also had five steals as Davidson recorded its first NCAA tournament victory since 1969.
The Wildcats, who are on a 23-game winning streak, face Georgetown in the second round on Sunday. Hoyas coach John Thompson III was an interested spectator at the Davidson game.
Jason Richards, a senior from Barrington High, contributed 15 points and nine assists for Davidson, and Andrew Lovedale scored 12 points with 13 rebounds.
Curry scored 30 second-half points as Davidson overcame an 11-point deficit with former Gonzaga star Adam Morrison watching with hair even shaggier than when he played in the tournament two seasons ago.
“I thought, ‘There we go again,'” Davidson guard Max Paulhus Gosselin said of Curry. “He’s on fire.”
No player had scored more than 40 points against Gonzaga since 2002.
“It was like an opening-night star performance on Broadway and he was the star,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said.
Last season Curry received a standing ovation after scoring 30 points in a first-round loss to Maryland. This season the crowd chanted his name as he practically danced off the court while making eye contact with his parents.
Every lofting shot was reminiscent of his father, who owned a career 40.2 three-point percentage in the NBA. Stephen Curry, who was overlooked by Division I schools like Virginia Tech, learned not so much from one-on-one instruction as by watching his dad practice.
“He’s been there my whole life,” Stephen Curry said. “The things I do on the court kind of come from him, so he’s in my head during the game.”
Layups
Georgetown’s stingy defense was on display in its 66-47 first-round victory against Maryland-Baltimore County. The Hoyas, who led the Big East in field-goal defense, held the Retrievers to 32 percent shooting. … In a 113-74 first-round blowout of Mt. St. Mary’s, North Carolina placed 14 players in the scorers log. The crowd cheered loudest when the subs and walk-ons entered the game with 4:39 remaining as the Tar Heels reached the 100-point mark. The players were most animated when Raleigh native Surry Wood dunked with less than two minutes to play.
