Thursday, January 22, 2009

McKillop Checks out The King's "Defense"

Davidson coach Bob McKillop will use anything to make a point, and he did so again prior to Davidson's 83-43 blowout of Furman Wednesday night in Belk Arena.

He has been working to improve the Wildcats' already-strong team defense, and the team has locked down opponents for 20 or 30 minutes on occasion this season but never for the entire game.

So this time he turned to cinema to make his point.

"We showed a clip from the movie 'Sparta,' in which King Leonidas would not allow one of the fighters to join the Spartan army because he couldn't lift his shield over his shoulder," McKillop said. "The message of the clip was that everyone has to be able to handle their responsibility. Only then can you win.

"It was clear to me that all our guys took it to heart."

Uh, yeah. Furman scored four points in the first 17:13 of the second half. And that was just the obvious highlight. The Paladins were forced into 22 turnovers during the game, ten of them coming on Davidson steals. Furman shot 31.9 percent.

King Leonidas would have been proud.--Stan Olson


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the movie you (or McKillop, or the fact-checker for this) is "300."

The person couldn't lift his shield because he was a deformed hunchback. Wonder what the coach is saying there?

Interesting going-ons up at Davidson. That said, don't believe the hype this year, and be prepared for an NCAA letdown. Second round at best

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, the movie was probably based on the original writing. I seriously doubt McKillop would have used a hunchback as an example! I hope Davidson goes further this year, though I am sure teams will be more prepared than they were last year. Maybe you have then mixed up with the tarholes.

Observer Sports said...

He probably did mean "300." I'm at a disadvantage since I didn't see it...too busy blogging!