Defending Stephen Curry

Tonight it will be the College of Charleston's turn to try to slow down Davidson's Stephen Curry, the nation's leading scorer. Thursday UNC Greensboro took a crack at it, and instead of a box-and-one or double-teaming him every time he touched the ball, simply manned him up--with a rotation of about a half-dozen different players.

The result? Curry got his 29-point average, but was 10-of-24 from the floor. Davidson still managed a 21-point win.

"Probably like any team, we tried to limit his touches as much as possible," said 6-foot-5, 220-pound Ben Stywall, one of those who took a turn guarding Curry. "If he's standing in the corner, we try to prevent him from getting it. We all rotated on him; tried to keep fresh legs on him at all times. He's very smart, his IQ is very high. He makes a lot of great plays to get his teammates open."

Teammate Kendall Toney, also in the stop-Curry mix, added, "We all have different skills, whether it be size or quickness. Just try to keep different people on him."

Before we give the Spartans too much credit, though, it seemed as if Curry simply had a poor shooting day for him. He actually seems to be able to get open--particularly against one man--pretty much anytime he wants to.

Asked if UNC G wore him down throwing all those bodies, at him, Curry said, "A little bit, because they had fresh legs and you have to combat that. My conditioning is pretty good, I think, so I can last a good amount of time."

Oh, who are we kidding? If Curry had been hitting consistently Thursday, he would have had 40.--Stan Olson