Davidson Takes Cougars to School

Davidson 75, College of Charleston 59

Top Performers

Jake Cohen 32 points, 3 rebounds

Trent Wiedeman 10 points, 6 rebounds

Welp, all good things must come to an end. After winning six straight conference games the Cougars finally fell at the paws of the Davidson Wildcats. Does it suck to lose at home? Absolutely. Is it the end of the world? No- as long as the Cougars can learn from it and move on. 

The Wildcats came out with a clear agenda and all the momentum to try and shut up the TD Arena crowd early. Right out of the jump they rallied off 10 straight uncontested points and forced a handful of turnovers out of the Cougs. It wasn't until Andrew Lawrence nailed a three that the Cougars finally started showing life. CofC then went on a run of their own to make it a game in the first half. The Cougars won the rebounding battle in the first half, got Brooks and Cohen to fall into foul trouble and limited Davy's trips to the line. However despite their toughness the Cougars never put any consecutive offensive possessions together to really challenge or pull away from their opponent. In the second half things would quickly turn sour.

In stark contrast to the last meeting (and most of the season), the Cougars could not defend the three point line. For the game Davidson shot a torching 10-24 from behind the arc. It was an offensive clinic by McKillop to swing the ball inside, out and around the line before the Cougars ball screen double teams could recover. That got the entire team defense in trouble for CofC. One-on-one the Cougars couldn't stop a monster game from Jake Cohen. Adjehi Baru, who again struggled against Davidson, couldn't keep up with Cohen on the perimeter and got schooled a couple times by up-and-unders and spin moves. I don't completely fault Baru for not being able to check Cohen, but he didn't help the team with his game-high three turnovers and he seemed to regress offensively. 

Meanwhile the Davidson defense wasn't allowing anything. The Cougars have proven several times this year that they can win with defense or offense when one facet is lacking. Last night they couldn't stop Davidson's execution anywhere, especially in the second half. Far too often the Cougars were left with the shot clock under 10 and no signs of a Plan B play or any movement. They got bailed out a few times by Lawrence making tough shots (couldn't blame him with the offense getting stagnant at times, he finished with 0 assists) but never looked like they had the upper hand.

Every time the Cougars flirted with seizing the lead, Davidson made big plays again and again to deny them. An offensive put back, a three or a transition bucket would take away any momentum. The Cougars also didn't help themselves from the free throw line. After getting the Davidson bigs in foul trouble, the Cougars only went 4-10 from the charity stripe, a lot of times on the front end of a one-and-one. Going against the world's greatest free throw shooting team you have to at least keep the margin close.

As Wojcik would say after the game, "they were tougher than we were at critical moments" and "in the end your best players need to be at their best". That's a near perfect rendition of how it looked from my vantage point. Those momentum-swinging plays Davidson made whenever they were challenged were the difference. When Trent went down with his ankle injury (he said he'll play tomorrow), CofC could have really rallied, but Davidson was the aggressor from that point on and put the game away. 

Just like we've had a lot of team victories this year, this was a team loss. The guys got beat by the better team. It didn't come down to one play or player fault. There's another chance to finish out the SoCon Revenge Tour strong with a victory at home against Georgia Southern tomorrow. The Cougs could use it.