This is by far my largest play of the year and for good reason which I will get to in a moment. Now Davidson did lose to Wofford on the road already this year, and the revenge really has nothing to do with my play here. It's how Davidson has progressed to even beat Western Carolina the top team in the conference on the road in their last game on revenge play. The main reason is strength of schedule which has the conference stats skewed big time against Davidson which has led to this small number. Davidson is +1.1 ppg in conference play while Wofford is +8.9 ppg and looking at that you'd think that Wofford would be favored here. However, a closer look and you see that Davidson has played the top three conference teams twice this year. Charleston, Western Carolina, and App State. They lost to App State twice and split two games with Charleston and Western Carolina. Davidson's only other loss in conference play was one that really has me scratching my head and that was to Wofford.
The reason I am scratching my head is Davidson struggles defending the three which is the reason they lost two the top three teams as all three teams are the top 3 three point shooting % teams in the Southern Conference. Wofford however is ranked #9 out of 12 teams. Now Davidson did lead that game by 3 at half time @ Wofford and they defended the three well as Wofford went just 2-10. The difference was Davidson turned the ball over 20 times and they got to the FT line 22 less times than Wofford did. Davidson actually shot the ball better and were pretty close in rebounding at just -3. Now take that into fact and know that Davidson plays much better at home and Wofford who is 8-6 on the road and is getting to FT line just +3.3 times on the road and you will understand that we will have a different game on our hands.
Davidson absolutely needs this game and I expect Belk Arena to be sold out with 5700 fans yelling for Davidson to move up in the standings ahead of Wofford. The development of the three outstanding freshmen in Kuhlman, Cohen and Cochran has been outstanding and they have the veteran McKillop who is not going to have 4 turnovers in this game. I really like this play because there is a misconception that Wofford is better than Davidson yet Wofford has not gotten a win @ Davidson since 1990 when the two teams were Division II programs.
