The Daily Gus: December 10th

The Jimmy V Classic took place last night at Madison Square Garden, an annual event featuring four of the nation's top teams and celebrating one of the most recognized personalities of college basketball history. Jim Valvano created the Jimmy V Foundation, an organization dedicated to cancer research after a historic speech at the 1993 ESPY Awards in New York. Valvano coached at Iona, Johns Hopkins, Bucknell and most famously at NC State where he won a 1983 national title with the "Cardiac Kids." Valvano is famous for his reaction after the Derek Whittenburg buzzer beater where he was sprinting around Albuquerque's The Pit arena, just looking for someone to hug. Valvano later became an analyst for ESPN while it was growing as a national television power, and gave a historically inspirational speech after being diagnosed with cancer. "Don't give up, don't ever give up" is the foundation's mantra, and epitomizes Jim Valvano's life. He died two months after the speech, but his presence remains in the foundation and college basketball even 15 years later.

In the Jimmy V first game, Davidson played West Virginia. Stephen Curry goes 4-16 from three and has eight turnovers, quick what happens to Davidson? Assumed answer would be the Wildcats get killed against some real competition like West Va, but Curry got his points at the most crucial times and finished with 27 and 10 assists. Curry played all 40 minutes and only six Davidson players scored, and Curry looked frustrated for much of the game even though Bob McKillop's squad led nearly the whole way. Not often will Curry have an off night, and this was a precious opportunity for someone to beat the 'Cats, but West Va couldn't take advantage of their 58-32 rebounding edge which included 29 offensive boards. Da'Sean Butler was mighty impressive for the Mountaineers as he went for 24 and 14, but the spotlight belonged to Curry, who kept shooting and playing through his cold slump and managed to connect in the end, scoring 13 of Davidson's last 15 points. This game just proved to show Curry is the elite scoring guard in the nation, regardless of what conference he plays in. And until further notice, Davidson has a shot to beat anyone until they can solve a way to stop Curry.

The second Jimmy V contest featured an untested Villanova team close to home playing an already tested, experienced Texas team. This was Texas' third game against a top-15 opponent (losses to Notre Dame in Maui and a victory over UCLA at home last Thursday) and it showed as Texas grabbed a 67-58 win that they led throughout. Texas held Scottie Reynolds to 2-7 shooting and made big man Dante Cunningham beat them. Although Cunningham went for 23 and 12, the Cats could not slow down A.J. Abrams. Abrams shoots early and often and last night was no different. An 8-18 night where he hit four three pointers, helped Abrams with yet another 20+ output game, his fourth of the season. Abrams also had four assists combined with an impressive zero turnovers, as the Longhorns used their swarming defense to slow down 'Nova. Seven Texas blocks and eight team rebounds to Villanova's one was the determining factor in the game. Texas continues to not receive respect when all they do is contend in every game they play. As the season goes on and the supporting cast improves, Texas looks to become more and more dangerous.

Shoot-Around

- Wisconsin almost blows yet another game at home to a middling mid-major. Idaho State went into the Kohl Center 2-5 and the only optimistic thing on their resume represents a win over Utah. They escaped with a 60-58 win in a game Travon Hughes had eight points on 1-4 shooting and five free throws. The Badgers shot fourteen more free throws than Idaho State, a major reason they could overcome shooting 37% to the Bengals' 52%. It was Wisconsin's third home game (out of 4) which have been decided by less than 10 points. The badgers have yet to play a team with a projected under 200 RPI.

- There was a time when Ames, Iowa was hell for everyone in the nation to come through. Nobody could win there during the Jamaal Tinsley and Marcus Fizer era, but those days are long gone. Drake went into Hilton Coliseum and captured their second victory in as many trips and third overall in the series after a 66-63 win. Drake moved to a transparent 7-2 where they have looked anything but impressive, and Iowa State dropped to 6-2, forgoing a 24 point output by guard Lucca Staiger. Staiger hit all 24 points on eight three balls, but allowed Drake to snag its first lead with under two minutes to play at 64-62. The Bulldogs held on for another win,and another home Iowa State loss.

- Georgia moved to 6-3 after beating Virginia Tech 67-66 and recovered from a lambasting in Champagne over the weekend when they got beat 76-42 at the hands of Illinois. Really an absolute pathetic display of basketball was on display in Athens last night; A.D. Vassallo looked to be the only player from both teams that deserved to have a jersey on. Vassallo went for 23 in 37 minutes, but the rest of the Hokie squad went 16 of 41 from the field, including 2 of 14 from three. Georgia wasn't much better, shooting 5 of 14 from three and 10-21 from the charity stripe. This contest proved neither team will be much of a factor in either of their major conferences.