To celebrate 30 years of SLAM, we’re featuring the 30 most influential men’s college teams of the past 30 years. Stats, records and chips are not the main factor here, it’s all about their contribution to the cultural fabric of the game.
Over the next 30 days, Monday through Friday, we’ll be featuring full list here. We also have an exclusive retro collegiate collection out now that pays homage to the threads of each squad. Shop here.
It’s hard to win a conference championship when you only have two players averaging double figures, let alone going into the NCAA Tournament and making a deep run. Well, anything is possible when one of those players is on his way to becoming the best shooter in basketball history.
Unless you were a college hoops junkie and someone who followed the mid-majors, there’s a good chance you never even heard of Davidson College before March 08. The Cinderella story was set all season long in Davidson, North Carolina, a small town outside of Charlotte.
Davidson was fresh off a successful season where they won the SoCon (Southern Conference) regular season and the SoCon Tournament. Despite a disappointing loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, they were on to something special. Just a little more time and synergy, maybe they can rock the world.
Any success they dreamed of for the ’08 campaign hinged on Stephen Curry, the baby-faced killer, their returning point guard, a 6-2 sophomore lanky who had been overlooked his entire life up until that point. He was fresh off a season in which he won the SoCon Freshman of the Year, but was hardly ever mentioned when people discussed the best players in college basketball. As a small mid-major in the shadow of their fellow Carolina foes like Duke, UNC, NC State and others, Davidson and their players faced an uphill battle to earn the respect they were guaranteed.
Their coaching staff realized that playing a nearly impossible non-conference schedule was the best way to earn that respect. Not only would this put the country and the NCAA committee on notice, but if all goes well, keeping their non-conference schedule alive would just be a confidence boost that Davidson should know they can compete with anyone on the field.
They were a lot competed against the top majors on their schedule, but struggled to pick up wins against them. They lost close games to No. 1 UNC, No. 7 Duke, No. 7 UCLA and NC State. Such losses often shake the confidence of young teams, but Davidson’s team saw a silver lining. They were knocking on the door.
With Davidson not having any signature wins on its resume, they needed to get through the SoCon and win the conference tournament to earn a spot in the Big Dance. They did just that, going an impressive 20-0 in the conference and securing the 10th seed. For most mid-major programs, this season alone will be successful.
Their superstar, Stephen, had an impressive season that included multiple 40-point performances, a bunch of 30-game steals and too many 20-point outbursts to count. He was named the SoCon Player of the Year, First-team All-SoCon and AP Second-Team All-American, among many other accolades. But he still had bigger fish to fry. he’s not done yet. Somehow he was still flying under the radar. Can he do it against stronger and longer athletes? Can his style of play translate to the NCAA Tournament?
No one outside that program could imagine what would happen next. Heck, most people inside the program probably couldn’t imagine it.
In three NCAA Tournament wins, Stephens blew out Gonzaga by 40 points, Georgetown by 30 and Wisconsin by 33. And these were not quiet speeches. his shooting prowess was like nothing we’d seen before, and definitely not at the college level. The fact that he did all of this while wearing a red Davidson jersey instead of a blue one makes it that much more significant. They ended up losing by two points to an Elite Eight heartbreaker from Kansas, who ended up winning the entire game.
Stephen was clearly a key component of Davidson’s success that year; let’s be clear, though. no one, and I mean no one, makes it to the Elite Eight by accident. There may not have been another big name on that list, but Steven’s supporting cast showed up when it mattered most. In particular, their senior racket Jason Richards was the only player to average more minutes per game than Steven and finished as the top assistant in college basketball that season. They were a balanced team. everyone bought everything they needed to get the job done. No egos, no selfishness, no ulterior motives. Add a future Hall of Famer to the mix and it’s a no-brainer that they were able to achieve greatness.
Today, Stephen is recognized as one of the greatest basketball players in the history of the game. His 08 season was the beginning of a basketball future at Davidson. Inevitably, the ’08 Davidson Wildcats become one of college basketball’s most dominant teams ever.
