Kansas ends Davidson’s dream season

DETROIT -- Stephen Curry darted this way, faked that way. Nothing open, and the bright red numbers on the clock getting close to zero.

He was the right guy -- the only guy -- to take the biggest shot of the NCAA tournament.

But there wasn’t one. All he could do was pass the ball and watch as Jason Richards’ desperation try thudded off the backboard.

Davidson was done. Kansas was in.

“It hurts a lot to get this far, be so close to get to the Final Four,” Curry said after top-seeded Kansas held off 10th-seeded Davidson, 59-57, on Sunday.

The Jayhawks’ win in the Midwest Regional final sent all four top-seeded teams to the Final Four for the first time.

“I’m definitely proud of what we’ve accomplished and what we’re about and what we’ve just proven all year,” Curry said.

” . . . But it’s going to hurt. This game’s going to hurt a lot for the next however long.”

Curry, the son of former NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry, had made the tournament his own little party, scoring at will with his silky-smooth shot and carrying Davidson to one improbable victory after another. He looked as if he might do it again, making a three-pointer from NBA range to cut Kansas’ lead to 59-57 with 54 seconds left.

After Kansas’ Sherron Collins missed with 21 seconds left, the Wildcats got one last chance.

And they gave the ball to Curry.

“Kansas had four guards out there and they just switched. It kind of defeated the purpose of the play,” he said. “I gave them a pump fake to try to get a look, but I was off-balance when he fell down. So I saw Jay open at the top of the key, so I swung it to him.”

But Richards was off-balance just enough to make the shot clang rather than swish.

“I kind of had a feeling in my heart that it wasn’t going in because the way he shot it. It looked like he was leaning to the left a little bit,” Kansas guard Mario Chalmers said.

Richards dropped to his back at midcourt while the Jayhawks celebrated with a measure of relief.

“Trust me, I was on both knees,” Kansas Coach Bill Self said. “You picture the way you win a big game like that, it would be you make a shot, you celebrate or something happens and you’re able to go congratulate all your coaches and players.

“This was not one of those deals. I just wanted to make sure that I hurried up and shook hands and the officials left the court so they couldn’t put any time back on the clock.”

The win also rids Self of that dreaded “best coach never to make a Final Four” label. Self had fallen short with three schools, including last year’s edition of the Jayhawks. But this year’s bunch had too much talent, depth and experience to be denied.

Curry, who became only the fourth player to hit the 30-point mark in his first four NCAA tournament games, finished with 25 on nine-for-25 shooting and was picked most outstanding player of the Midwest Regional.

The loss ended Davidson’s 25-game winning streak, longest in the nation.

“The agony of this is that we came so far,” Davidson Coach Bob McKillop said. “We’ve seen and touched our dream, and we missed.”

Sasha Kaun and Chalmers each scored 13 points for Kansas (35-3), which ended the feel-good story of the tournament. Tiny Davidson (29-3), trying to become only the third double-digit-seeded team to make the Final Four, simply ran out of gas in the stretch.