Nation's Leading Scorer Held Scoreless...

I came across this story on Yahoo! earlier this morning and found it very interesting. Stephen Curry, a player at Davidson and one of the stars of last year's March Madness, is the leading scorer in the nation - having games of 30, 39 and 44 points already this season. However, in Davidson's game against Loyola (Md.), he was held scoreless. That's right, Loyola (Md.) held the nation's leading scorer to 0 points. A guy who scored 44 points against Big 12's Oklahoma scored 0 points against Loyola (Md.). How did it happen?

They double-teamed him. On every possession. On every second of every possession. It didn't take Curry long to figure it out, and he decided to test their commitment to this strategy. He would run into the corner of the court and stand there, with 2 guys guarding him. That's right! He stood around for the majority of the game with 2 guys guarding him away from the action. Do the math now. Basketball is a 5 on 5 game. Loyola (Md.) was committing two players to one of Davidson's players. That made it a 4 on 3 game. Davidson won 78-48.

Now I understand that you don't want one guy to beat you, but really? Why in the world would you handicap yourself in a game that you are most likely going to lose in the first place? Davidson is ranked #24 in this early part of the season, and Loyola (Md.) has to include the state abbreviation in its name so that people will actually know where it is located.

Loyola (Md.)'s coach was quoted as saying, "I am a history major. [Are they] going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?" Funny, I thought the point was to win a game, not to make history by employing the dumbest defensive tactic in the history of basketball. Now, I'm not just including college and professional basketball. I'm including the defensive strategies that I employed when playing basketball in the driveway. Some of those strategies include, but aren't limited to - "pants-ing" the opposition, allowing them to miss their shots and getting the rebound, waving my arms in a side-to-side motion, yelling at the ball while it's in the air, and many others.

What is ironic is that I don't think that history is going to remember that they held the nation's leading scorer to 0 points, as the coach assumes. I think they're going to remember one of the dumbest coaching moves of all time, which cost a team with little chance to win the game to be embarrassed. This should be a "Real Men of Genius" commerical - Mr. I Know I'm Going to Lose Anyway Guy...

What I also find great about this story is that Curry just let them. He goes off to the corner and lets him teammates play the game. He doesn't care about keeping up his reputation as the nation's leading scorer. He wants to win the game. The team is more important than the individual. Now, if only that attitude can infiltrate other individuals in the basketball leagues of America, I might be able to watch the NBA again.