Pressure won't all be mental for Curry vs. Purdue

Davidson and star guard Stephen Curry face Purdue at 4 p.m. in Indianapolis Saturday, and it's safe to say they haven't seen a defense like the Boilermakers' this season.

Purdue (8-2) likes to press baseline-to-baseline with one-on-one pressure, something the Wildcats haven't faced yet during their 8-1 start this season--except in practice.

"I've seen a couple of presses but not one-on-one pressure," Curry said Thursday night. "We work on it in practice, so to be able to handle it, I think that's one of our strengths. With Max Paulhus Gosselin (who often guards Curry), who can do it, that's one of our strengths. I've seen it in practice a lot. And if they decide to do that, we should be fine handling it."

The Boilermakers will almost certainly guard Curry with 6-foot-3 junior guard Chris Kramer, who usually covers the opponents' best perimeter scorer. Kramer isn't much of a scorer himself (4.4 ppg), but is a key to one of the nation's best defenses and leads it in steals with 25. Purdue holds opponents to 34.8 percent shooting from the floor.

--Stan Olson