USA/CAN – Loyola Maryland shut down Curry but get thrashed by Davidson

DAVIDSON (NCAA) - Loyola Maryland had one objective on Tuesday night in the pre-season NIT game at Davidson College and that was to prevent the nation's leading scorer Stephen Curry from pouring in the points.

Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos’ curious strategy of having two men guard Curry from start to finish accomplished nothing in terms of giving his team a chance to win, however, as Curry’s wide-open teammates fired the nationally ranked Wildcats to a 78-48 triumph at the John M. Belk Arena.

Patsos’ triangle-and-two defense allowed Curry's teammates to score at will.

Nigerian Andrew Lovedale had 20 points and 10 rebounds, Bryant Barr drilled six three-balls and scored 18 and Canadian Will Archambault made three shots from behind the arc and finished with 13 for Davidson.

"It seemed to me they were willing to risk the game at the expense of locking Steph up,” said Davidson boss Bob McKillop, the man who coached the United States' under-18 national team this summer.

"When you put two people on somebody and you do it for 30 minutes, at the end of the game you have to wonder what the reasons for that are."

Patsos defended his strategy.

"We had to play against an NBA player tonight," Patsos said.

"Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I'm a history major. They're going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?

"I know the fans are mad at me, but I had to roll the dice as far as a coach goes."

Curry, who played for the United States at the 2007 FIBA Under-19 World Championship in Serbia and followed that up by leading Davidson into the Elite Eight of last season’s NCAA Tournament, had averaged 35 points in his first five games this year.

He ended up taking just three shots against Loyola and missed them all but that didn’t matter.

"When they're down by that much and still allowing us to get open shots, it kind of surprised me," Curry said.

Barr added: "If you're playing four-on-three against us, somebody is going to hurt you."

In other college games on Wednesday, top-ranked North Carolina whipped Oregon 98-69 while number four Pittsburgh beat Belmont 74-60 and eighth-ranked Notre Dame edged number seven Texas 81-80.

No 15 Marquette overcame Texas Southern 85-68, No 18 Florida scraped an 86-84 win over Washington, Monmouth fell at No 22 Villanova 71-48 and 23rd ranked Kansas lost 89-81 in overtime to Syracuse - the side led by Team USA's assistant coach on their gold-medal winning team at the Olympics.

FIBA