North Carolina Tar Heels(31-7 last season) at the Davidson Wildcats(1-0 start to this season and 29-5 last year) tonight at 7pm on ESPN. On the game Heel’s coach Roy Williams is talking over at www.tarheelblue.com:(Game will be played at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena)
Some teams might open with what the pundits would dub “cupcakes,” but going on the road to face a tough Davidson team that took Maryland to the brink last season in the NCAA Tournament is far from easy. “Opening against a quality opponent like Davidson is probably more difficult than where you’re playing, it’s who you’re playing. Five starters back from a team that won 29 games, a very confident team, a very well-coached team, a very dangerous team, regardless of who they play and where they play. So that’s probably a bigger part of it than just on the road, it’s who we’re playing. But we’ve lost a few of them and still done okay and we’ve won a few of them and struggled the next couple of games,” Coach Williams said.
The starting lineup is essentially set – Tywon Lawson at point guard, Wayne Ellington at shooting guard, Marcus Ginyard at the three-spot and obviously Tyler Hansbrough anchoring the middle. But the starting spot at the four-position has not yet been decided between Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson.
Will Graves(from Greensboro’s Dudley High School) has been nursing an ankle issue, but he practiced yesterday for the first time since Wednesday of last week and should be able to play.
Just a sophomore, wing Stephen Curry might already be Davidson’s most notable player since the program’s heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s, when Lefty Driesell and Terry Holland were at the helm.
Curry, the son of former NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry, led the Southern Conference in scoring at 21.5 points last winter. His 122 3-pointers are a Division I record for freshmen.
*****extended editing work by greensborosports.com*****