Two Through

By Kyle Whelliston on March 23, 2008 8:53 PM | Permalink

Two brave, fighting groups of men... two long dormant small-college basketball legacies reborn... two tourney champions turned Sweet survivors. The Sun Belt and the SoCon, two leagues the general public can't tell apart from each other, are sending representatives to the NCAA Regionals. Hoo-zah!

Courtney Lee and Stephen Curry... what can we say? Or rather, what can we say that hasn't been regurgitated before in a long series of heroic odes, in these pages and elsewhere? Two young men with champions' hearts, two red-clad stars of Hoops Nation... two people who are extremely good at playing basketball. Both will showcase their respective awesomenesses later this week, for all of the country's VHF-watching audience to see.

Lee, nothing short of 29 points and best-player-on-the-floor status for his role in keeping San Diego at bay in a wire-to-wire Topper victory, making sure No. 13 did not overcome No. 12 in the City of Upsets. Curry, nothing but pure basketball magic. After being shackled with two fouls in the first half, he leapt off the bench with 25 second-half points (to close with his jersey number) and pulled the Wildcats from a 17-point deficit. We're not going to make any sort of religious parallels to anything on this Easter, the most holy of days... but gosh-darned if we're not biting our tongue.

As for us, we continue on... the movement will not be stopped. We will be traveling to Bowling Green to take part in the celebrations and heroes' sendoff, and then we're on to Detroit to cover the Midwest Regional. There'll be plenty of thoughts, observations, pictures and Bally sightings during this week. It'll be a celebration of all things underdog, and we're grateful to the Toppers and Cats for the opportunity to keep going with this.

And as is longstanding Mid-Majority tradition, we will celebrate our Super Sweet pair by giving them the entire header on the site on every page. Just as we did with the UWM-Majority (2005), GMU-Majority (2006) and Dawg-Majority last year, Western Kentucky will carry the banner from now until the end of Tuesday. We'll switch to Davidson then.

(12) WESTERN KENTUCKY 72, (13) SAN DIEGO 63

WESTERN KENTUCKY 29-6 (16-2) -- J. Wallace 5-8 0-0 12; C. Lee 9-15 7-8 29; T. Brazelton 6-15 1-4 15; T. Rogers 1-3 3-3 5; J. Evans 3-7 3-4 9; A. Slaughter 1-1 2-2 4; B. Siakam 3-3 0-0 6; O. Mendez-Valdez 1-3 0-0 2; D. Magley 0-1 0-0 0; S. Pettigrew 1-4 0-0 2. Totals 25-52 16-21 72.

SAN DIEGO 22-14 (11-3) -- B. Johnson 4-15 3-8 13; D. Jackson 3-6 1-2 7; R. Jones 4-6 3-6 11; G. Pomare 7-10 6-8 20; T. Johnson 2-7 2-2 7; D. Ginty 1-3 0-0 3; C. Houston 0-0 2-2 2; C. Lewis 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-47 17-28 63.

Three-point goals: WKU 6-16 (T. Rogers 0-2; C. Lee 4-5; O. Mendez-Valdez 0-2; T. Brazelton 2-6; J. Evans 0-1), USD 4-15 (D. Jackson 0-1; B. Johnson 2-8; T. Johnson 1-4; D. Ginty 1-2); Rebounds: WKU 27 (J. Evans 7), USD 26 (G. Pomare 9); Assists: WKU 11 (T. Brazelton 5), USD 11 (B. Johnson 4); Total Fouls -- WKU 19, USD 20; Fouled Out: WKU-None; USD-D. Jackson.

(10) DAVIDSON 74, (2) GEORGETOWN 70

DAVIDSON 28-6 (20-0) -- J. Richards 5-13 9-10 20; S. Curry 8-21 9-10 30; M. Paulhus Gosselin 1-3 2-2 4; A. Lovedale 5-10 1-3 11; T. Sander 3-3 2-3 8; S. Rossiter 0-0 0-0 0; B. Meno 0-2 1-2 1; W. Archambault 0-4 0-0 0; B. Barr 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 22-57 24-30 74.

GEORGETOWN 28-6 (15-3) -- J. Wallace 5-8 0-0 12; D. Summers 4-8 0-0 10; J. Sapp 5-6 0-0 14; A. Freeman 2-2 3-4 9; P. Ewing 1-4 0-2 2; C. Wright 4-6 1-2 9; V. Macklin 2-4 4-8 8; R. Hibbert 3-3 0-1 6; J. Rivers 0-0 0-0 0; T. Crawford 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-41 8-17 70.

Three-point goals: DAV 6-26 (J. Richards 1-6; W. Archambault 0-4; B. Barr 0-1; S. Curry 5-15), GU 10-18 (J. Wallace 2-4; J. Sapp 4-5; D. Summers 2-4; P. Ewing 0-2; C. Wright 0-1; A. Freeman 2-2); Rebounds: DAV 23 (T. Sander 6), GU 26 (J. Sapp 4); Assists: DAV 10 (S. Curry 5), GU 11 (C. Wright 3); Total Fouls -- DAV 20, GU 27; Fouled Out: DAV-T. Sander; GU-R. Hibbert.

Yes, I've written about it.