Before he became BFF with LeBron James, before he was ignored by college coaches, before he even entered kindergarten, Curry's exuberant presence merited the watchful gaze of Don Nelson at the 1992 NBA All-Star Game. (The guy's got an eye for talent.) NBA.com's John Schuhmann unearthed this photographic gem this morning, but we're here to add context to these 1,000 words with some intrepid reporting of our own. Here's what really went down:

"The Timberwolves are going to draft this hombre with floppy hair with the No. 5 pick," said Curry, who had just learned to count and was looking for opportunities to show off. "Then they're going to trade for the No. 6 pick and take another point guard and finally, the gray-haired dude behind us is going to pick me with the No. 7 pick. So, yeah, that's how I'll be playing in Golden State in 17 years."

"You for real?" Mitch Richmond asked.

"I'm going to be a better shooter than you and my pops, you just wait. Also, check out my sweatsuit."

"Not that," said Richmond, ignoring the tyke's threads. "You're telling me that in 2009, Nellie's still going to be in Golden State?"

*****

Thank you, ladies and gentlefolks, for your continued support of Deadspin. Don't wait so long for tomorrow.

Blake Griffin, No. 1

Patti says: "He's not even really wanting to shake hands with the commissioner. He's not turning his body or extending his arm out. The commissioner has to do all the work. It ends up looking like Blake Griffin is holding a baseball bat rather than shaking a hand."

Hasheem Thabeet, No. 2

Patti says: "Hasheem looks like a parent looking at a child. His facial expression, his smile is not, 'Ooh, this is an honor.' It's, 'Oh, you're a little boy, commissioner.' His outer hand is on the commissioner's arm. That's a power handshake. That shows he feels powerful, in control. He's literally making him move the way he wants him to move."

Tyreke Evans, No. 4

Patti says: "Tyreke has his shoulders back and away, but his head is down. This is a conflicted movement. He's not comfortable and happy and in the moment. He's just kind of awkward. The commissioner looks much more confident, sure of himself. But Tyreke looks like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do. That index finger is really significant. You put out that finger when you're a little bit fearful."

Ricky Rubio, No. 5

Patti says: "He's shy. Even though he has a nice smile on his face, there's some stiffness to it. He's happy, but there's tension in this moment for him. The one thing that he is doing: He's giving a really nice, full handshake. He's connected to the commissioner. The other guys, it was more for show."

Jonny Flynn, No. 6

Patti says: "This is my favorite. He's not only joyful, but his whole body is leaning in toward the commissioner. He's actually putting weight on the commissioner, letting go of some of his power with that huge slant. He's lifting the commissioner's hand up a little bit as he's doing this. This is a totally different level of warmth."

Stephen Curry, No. 7

Patti says: "He's totally off-balance in this moment, and you see that throughout the whole body. His left arm is out to his side, reaching in the other direction — it's like he wants to be someplace else. There's a lot of tension around the head. He's not happy. He's feeling very awkward and doesn't want to be in this place."

Tyler Hansbrough, No. 13

Patti says: "This is the first one where we've seen a lot of stiffness around the commissioner's mouth. He's forcing a smile. Maybe he's been doing handshakes for awhile and has to fake it. And Tyler is just kind of, 'Uhhhh, God.'"

Jrue Holiday, No. 17

Patti says: "Wow. His posture is so different. That's the posture of somebody who was in the ROTC or the church, or who was raised by someone religious. Very erect, very proud bearing. His clasp on the commissioner is very warm. It surrounds the hand. He's not mad. He's not upset. He's not super-happy. He's just more self-contained and just very respectful."

For Nelly that's another little with a penchant for shooting. Monta Ellis probably isn't very happy. He should probably take the moped for a spin to blow off some steam.

Getty Image via Yahoo!

I was assigned the story by the New York brass because I had considerable experience with upstart dot-coms, but I was outside of the loop on this one; Twitter was scary to me, someone who, as you might have noticed, prefers to write long, rather than in 140 character increments. I started my Twitter account because I thought it might be a fun gimmick for the story, a reporter updates readers on interview while it's going on type of thing. It didn't work out that way — thankfully, considering that's a really hacky way to write a story — but I ended up being hooked. But I'm not hooked on Tweeting. I'm hooked on reading Tweets. That has to be one of the more effeminate sentence combinations I've ever written. And I've written many.

As you know if you follow me on Twitter, I'm not the world's most entertaining Tweeter. Mostly, it's just links to stories I've written, banal updates on parental visits and conversations with Cardinals beat reporters. As a writer, I find Twitter useful mostly as an aggregate. But as a reader, it has become my morning newspaper. When I wake up in the morning, I log onto Twitter to find out what's happening in the world. Which is idiotic and utterly true.

To me, Twitter is the world's greatest RSS feed, allowing me to gather information from friends, colleagues, reporters, comedians and anyone else who regularly updates with information I care about. Movies? Check! TV reviews? Check! and Check! Hilarious stumbling and backtracking? Check! Smart media criticism? Check! and Check! Genius baseball wit? Check! Dry fake outrage? Check! Mattoon news? Check! I make my own newspaper every day. And I can unsubscribe to any section of the paper I want to, at any time.

This is nothing new, of course; Old Man Discovers Twitter. But what's interesting to me is that I find using Twitter almost as passive an experience as reading a newspaper. I update my own Twitter about as often as I wrote on my newspaper, which is to say, "occasionally." I just feel like everyone does it better than I do. I enjoy reading what other people have to say; some seem to have mastered the form. Twitter has become my morning news source, because I just pick and choose what I want and ignore the rest. This is why I'm growing stupider. This is why we all are. I couldn't be happier about it. I'll read the New York Times later, to explain what happens. For now, this'll work.

I'm not turning my icon green, though. I still support the Iranian people. Honest.

J.J. Abrams. My parents were here all weekend, and as with all parents visiting from out of town, eventually you run out of activities for them and everybody just collapses in front of the television. (Like we were gonna go to a museum or some shit.) Desperate, I strapped them in a chair to watch the pilot episode of "Lost," and now, of course, they're hooked, spending most of the rest of the week trying to figure out why the bald guy can walk now and who's going to be the lucky castaway to shoot Boone and Shannon in the face. You would have thought my parents the last people on the planet to lack even the most cursory exposure to "Lost," but you'd be wrong. Witness! Foster Kamer at Gawker this weekend uncovered a Dutch television station duped into thinking the scene of the plane crash in "Lost" was actual footage from the Air France crash. No, really: They actually thought this. They even had a hilarious Web posting about it, which they of course took down. The best part is that you can see Evangeline Lilly as Kate in the photo. The Dutch don't know who this is? Come on, Holland, let's try to stay in the game here.

Michael Bay. I love the notion of enormous robots fighting as much as anybody, but after the horrific first Transformers movie — which was a spectacle in the same way that spinning around in circles in your yard for an hour until your brain explodes was a spectacle — you couldn't drag me to the sequel. (Particularly after withering report from a screening, the highlight being the product placement of "a huge Planters peanuts can is placed smack in the middle of a garage floor during one scene, because that's where one usually keeps food - on the floor with nothing around it in a huge garage." (Roger Ebert's review is particularly spirited.) You still can't escape the marketing of this film, though, and much of that is because of Bay, who really shouldn't ever be forgiven for Pearl Harbor, which has a legitimate claim on the worst, most misguided movie imaginable. His instantly legendary angry email to the Paramount promotions department contains this super doubleplus brilliant clause: "So far our print has been in my opinion and abject failure." That is the most sentence ever. That looks like it was written in this column.

Matthew Berry. Like Daulerio and Drew, I received an angry email from Tucker Max this weekend, and man, if that's not a career capper, I can't imagine what is. I'm not sure why it's Daulerio's fault that the aging cretin outed ESPN fantasy expert Matthew Berry as a guy who had a "threesome set up with a porn star and some other girl, had them both IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, and blew it-didn't fuck either one!" but hey, the video he sent all of us was awfully clever anyway. Of course, acting as if Tucker Max has ever said a truthful word in his life is somewhat of a fallacy in the first place; one gets a sense that Berry and Max had a few beers, and next thing you knew, Max was writing pretend stories about threesomes with porn stars and Berry's all "Wha-wha-wha?" I'm sure this hasn't been a pleasant week for Berry, who seems like a nice, if somewhat frattish, fellow, but it's difficult to feel too sorry for him: If you hang out with Tucker Max, and then tell the world about it (at 5:40 in the morning!), you probably deserve whatever's coming your way. I like that Max felt obliged to point out it wasn't Bill Simmons, though. I'm sure Bill appreciates that.

Stephen Curry. As a late-in-life, I-grew-up-without-a-team, hey-Woody-Allen-likes-them-why-not? New York Knicks fan/convert — I accept all scorn here — I'm cheering madly for the Knicks to end up with the modern-day Maravich, even if almost every mock draft anymore has someone choosing him before he comes around. I was trying to come up with the worst possible person for the Knicks to draft, the person who would inspire the Garden to freak out like the Balkman days of yore. I decided it would be Tyler Hansbrough, who, oddly, NBADraft.net has going to the Nets at No. 11. There wouldn't be a worse player for Mike D'Antoni's style, and he'd become an instant, legendary punchline. No one would remember Frederic Weis again. I almost hope it happens. How will you feel if your team drafts Tyler Hansbrough, and your team isn't the Charlotte Bobcats? This is my favorite new storyline of Thursday's draft.

Johnny Depp. I'm willing to wait in line for hours to see Public Enemies — rough early buzz aside — because I would watch Michael Mann film a peanut butter sandwich for two hours. (Particularly if that ham-sandwich was being eaten by a crazed Al Pacino with a come beat everybody up.) That looks like the mascot for Hell's minor league baseball team. Nightmare Fuel, indeed. [pours one out for Chandler]

Lucas Glover. Like the rest of you, I have no idea who Lucas Glover is and will therefore not bother telling you anything about the new U.S. Open winner. I do think some credit should go out to The New York Times' Mark Sweeney, who, using some strange golf Bill James statistics, picked Glover as his sleeper pick to win the tournament last Wednesday. Way to go, Mark Sweeney, whoever you are! Actually, it turns out that he kind of is the Bill James of golf. This Golf Digest story from two years ago talks about his "Urgency Effect," which basically attempts to quantify how golfers get the yips. I don't know what it means. I'm just relieved we're halfway through the golf season, when people like me have to pretend golf is a sport we follow as closely as we follow other sports. You know what golfers need? They need numbers, like in NASCAR. That way the middle manager at your corporate complex could stick a "23 Woods" sticker on the back of his Miata, and we'd know all we needed to about the guy we're honking at in traffic.

Joe Morgan. Now that Craggs has hit his stride — eventually we're all going to forget anyone else works here — I'm taking particular glee in his weekly hectoring of Joe Morgan. Much like Josh Levin is still in Rick Reilly's head to this day with the whole tooth metaphor thing, you get the sense, in the wake of Morgan's "apology" on Sunday night, that the same thing might be happening. That's the good news. The bad news is that Morgan might end up so shaky that he turns into Tim McCarver. You can imagine in future telecasts, Morgan, afraid that he will inadvertently unleash another pile of bullshit "confusion," limiting himself to saying easily verifiable things like, "That was a single. I once hit a single." and "There are nine innings in most baseball games." I'm not sure if that would be better or worse. Think of it this way: Do you prefer the harmless brainlessness of Clark Kellogg, or the obnoxious but opinionated snootiness of Billy Packer? That we must make such decisions ... that, friends, is our plight.

Alex Rodriguez. Pete Abraham of the Journal News is what New York beat reporters would be like if they weren't all crazy — slight oversimplification! Don't depant me next time I visit the press box, guys! — and he has absolutely nailed how sloppy the Yankees have been with Alex Rodriguez since he came off the disabled list. A-Rod's rehab, remember, was more of a split-the-baby procedure, a little bit of surgery here, a little bit of surgery at the end of the season, let the man settle in and work his way back type of thing. Manager Joe Girardi didn't do this at all, though, playing him every day until, inevitably, he broke down, to the point that they're going to be sitting him at least a day a week for quite some time, probably even more. It's like they completely forgot he was hurt, which is not a smart decision for a team paying him about $26 million every season through the 2017 season. This is why the Yankees are insane and still compelling: Every year is so important that they're willing to risk a guy they still owe $206 million simply to stay competitive for May and June. And it didn't even work. I have to say: The Yankees are a fun team to write about for your job.

Donte Stallworth. Like me, the Palm Beach Post, in the wake of Donte Stallworth's light sentence for killing a man while driving under the influence, got to thinking about Leonard Little. The Rams linebacker killed a woman in 1998 while driving home drunk after his birthday party — the woman was actually the wife of a photographer who occasionally shoots Rams games, as documented memorably by SI's Mike Fish — and was only suspended for eight games. (He served 30 more days in jail than Stallworth will.) Little, amazingly, is still playing, even though he was arrested again for a DUI in 2004, though he was ultimately acquitted of the charges. It's impossible to have the right stance on instances like Little's and Stallworth's. Part of you wants to throw them in jail for 100 years, and the other says that if you serve your time, you should have the right to rejoin your chosen vocation while you have the opportunity, even if you're a monster who did something stupid and terrible. Either way, it makes you want to bash your head into a wall until it bleeds.

Jeff Weaver. One suspects Tigers fans, Yankees fans and Mariners fans aren't doing backflips about it, but we Cardinals fans are happy for Jeff Weaver, who appears to be settling into a somewhat regular rotation slot with the Dodgers. As I've mentioned before, there's no place on earth other than Busch Stadium that Jeff Weaver would be greeted with a standing ovation, and that includes the Weaver household. On the list of unlikely World Series heroes, Weaver has to be considered one of the least likely; the man was dominant in a deciding game against a classic offense. (The only guy who hit him was Sean Casey, of all people.) The Weaver tenure in St. Louis was a total blur; he didn't show up until July and was knocked around until the playoffs. His October was so ridiculous that, when my father and I had a discussion on whose World Series jersey we should buy to commemorate 2006, we ended up choosing Weaver. Sure, I look like an idiot when I wear the jersey to softball games, but hey, I'm usually wearing black socks and maroon shorts anyway, so the jersey is the least of my problems. By the way, the 2006 commemorative championship video is particularly amusing to watch now, considering Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Jeff Suppan, Adam Wainwright, everyone looks all officially and grownup, and then Weaver shows up looking like the biggest dirtball alive. All he's missing is a pack of Winstons and rotting teeth. Bless him.

Silicon Alley Insider editor (and former Denton-ophile) Nicholas Carlson is a graduate of Davidson, as is his younger brother, and during a campus visit two years ago he scooped the world with inside knowledge of Curry's professional basketball plans. Curry personally told him "we have two more years of this" implying, no ... vowing that he would finish his time and graduate as a Wildcat. Then he and Nick hugged and that is a bond that cannot be broken, man. Yet today, Curry went back on this sacred oath and announced he will drop out of school.

Reached for IM comment Carlson said this:

A real dson doesn't quit school

I guess money and fame mean more than hugs.

Curry to go pro [Davidson News]
Exclusive: Stephen Curry Tells Lunchfood He's Staying In School [Nicholas Carlson]

Yes, the Curry family won everybody's heart last March and hopes were high for Stephen and the Wildcats in this season. They started the year ranked in the Top 25 and scheduled several big time schools in order to test their mettle and up their tourney profile. Except they lost most of the games handily and got dumped by Butler in a "bracket buster" matchup just weeks ago. Now they couldn't even reach the finals in a conference that never pulls down at-large bids. So are we looking at a Stephen Curry-less NCAA tournament?

All year, the Wildcats fought the perception that they were nothing but a one-man team ... and they lost that fight. The selection committee may feel the urge to reward that one man with another shot in the Big Dance, but they shouldn't. Curry led the nation in scoring and his long range bombs wowed fans in 2008, but you aren't supposed to get credit for those things. Teams with much better resumes will not get it. Davidson had their chance and they made the most of it, but it's over. They won't duplicate that magic this time—although someone else who is currently unknown can ... and probably will. Believe it or not, we'll all be just fine without him.

Mr. March Headed to the NIT [Rush The Court]
Auto-Bid Watch: Championship Week [Storming The Floor]

ESPN's BracketBusters is an annual made-for-ad-revenue event that pits low- and mid-major teams from different conferences against each other. This year, 13 of the games are televised across the ESPN cabal of networks. However, I've had ESPNews on the TV for most of the day and all I've heard about are two games. Scratch that. All I've heard about are two players: Seth and Stephen Curry.

Look, ESPN, we get it. NBA player dad, hot mom, good players. But there are 24 other teams out there, all of which probably have some pretty compelling stories of their own. If you want anyone to watch those games, you might consider publicizing them.

And how are those Curry kids doing? Seth Curry's Liberty team was eviscerated by (women's) powerhouse Old Dominion 80-56 and Stephen Curry's overrated Davidson squad was rolled by Butler 75-63. Stephen got 20 points...on team-killing 6-23 shooting. Predictably, between the time I started writing this and now, ESPN.com has all but removed all traces of BracketBusters from its front page.

Butler vs. Davidson [ESPN.com]
Liberty vs. Old Dominion [ESPN.com]

It seems that NORBY(!) got it in his pretty little head to switch the announcing crews from his college basketball and NBA rosters for one night. Vitale and Dan Schulman will work the NBA game, while MikeTirico, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson will handle the Davidison-Duke tilt earlier in the evening. Why? Why not?!

''It's a natural progression to make connections between college basketball and the NBA,'' ESPN executive Norby Williamson said. ``The commentators involved have strong ties with the other level, which will prompt engaging dialogue. Dick, Mark and Jeff are universally recognized as leading basketball experts.''

Hear that? Universally. He also added that Vitale has "working knowledge" of the Heat roster (i.e., he's seen Dwayne Wade's TV commercials), so there's no cause for alarm. Of course, that doesn't explain how Davidson golden boy Stephen Curry will play a game in Cameron Indoor Arena and Dick Vitale will not be in the building. I thought that was like an FCC regulation or something.

Dick Vitale returns to NBA - for one game [Miami Herald]

I mean, it's not like she's strutting around in cut-off shorts with "Wildcat" written on the butt or boozing it up with her son's teammates on Facebook. She's just a mom who isn't ugly and understands that Davidson relies too much on her son's outside jumpshot. Just like every other mom at the Garden last night. I mean, why doesn't anyone talk about how Del's long-range abilities on NBA Live '95 inspired Stephen and kept me from getting destroyed by my roommate in Super Nintendo grudge matches?

Anyway, Davidson held off West Viriginia even though it took 27 shots and 12 missed 3-pointers for Curry to get his 27 points. Curry still leads the nation in scoring at 30.8 points per game, while his mother apparently leads the nation in the crowd reaction shots. Maybe she'll get a new hairdo before March!

Breakfast of Champions - Don't Ever Give Up Edition [Storming The Floor]
College basketball season now officially under way [Sports Hernia]

Patsos has been taking some heat for his team's strategy against Davidson on Nov. 25, in which the Greyhounds employed a triangle-and-two defense on Stephen Curry, holding the nation's leading scorer without a point. Problem was, Davidson won the game, 78-48. The unique gambit was the talk of the media for about a week, and even PTI chatterheads Wilbon and Kornhesier chimed in (I didn't see the segment; I assume they disapproved). And that, thought Patsos, deserved a response.

The letter, addressed to Wilbon and Kornheiser, was passed along to Albany Times-Union reporter Pete Iorizzo, who in turn shared it with his readers. I've blocked the following excerpt because I don't want you to miss it. The entirety of the letter follows that.

As an American I wish we had leaders like [Davidson coach Bob] McKillop and Curry, who could have gotten the CIA and FBI to talk so we could have prevented the 9-11 tragedy, or saw that Fannie Mae was creating a mortgage crisis coming which could cripple a country. The Davidson basketball family united the way I wish Wall Street would have instead of letting so many Americans retirement be lost. I wish his staff could have advised the administration who got us into a war in Iraq which cost us countless lives, and disabilities, countless money and has gone on longer than WWII. I know these are extreme examples to show that the Davidson basketball family adjusted, made smart choices and unselfish choices for the good of the team.

Dear Mr. Kornheiser and Mr. Wilbon:

I would like to start by saying that after 20 years of coaching in the Baltimore-Washington (area) I have come to realize that you represent the highest intelligence and integrity in both written and broadcast journalism. Our team watches your show daily in the locker room as practice ends at 5:30.

The decision to deny Stephen Curry the ball for the entire game was a calculated risk and conscious choice by myself, our staff and our players. My staff is made up of Matt Kovarik (just passed the Maryland Bar), GG Smith (masters from Kentucky, Tubby’s son) and Greg Manning jr (Loyola player and 2008 graduate, son of Greg Manning Sr all-time free throw pct leader in ACC History). We had a tough win the night before vs. James Madison and our best defender Tony Lewis is hurt and out for a week. He tried to play vs Davidson but as unable after two minutes, and we want him healthy for the year. We are a very young team who lost 3 starters and 5 of the top 9 from last years record setting 19 win team. We have had 3 winning seasons in a row, which is very good since 5 years ago when I got here we were 1-27 and last in the country in the RPI!

The game plan to beat Davidson a top 25 team with a lottery pick in Stephen Curry, and 6 of 8 players back from an Elite Eight team was to keep Curry from touching the ball. If this was last year we would not have done this because Curry played shooting guard. The decision was based on the fact that he plays point guard now. He is tremendous not only averaging 35 pts, but also 9 assists per game. This means he accounts for 53 points per game for Davidson. My young, tired and inexperienced team met with the staff and we all felt this was our best chance to win the game. We spoke about the Four Corners Dean Smith used as we where playing in the State of North Carolina. It was a risk, but we felt it was our best chance to win the game. The players were all for it, they have a say here at Loyola Basketball. The game started well, and Davidson was forced to use two timeouts to deal with the situation. The lead of 9-4 was an impressive start for our young team. We used a combination of the triangle and two, box and one and a full-court press to stop Curry.

Unfortunately we could not make open shots, and committed twenty-one turnovers (mostly unforced). At halftime I asked the team if they wanted to play straight man to man, or stay with the game plan. They want to stick to the game plan in hopes we could run better offense, make shots and maybe the Davidson players would cool off from the 3 PT line. In the second half a seldom used Davidson freshman made 3 straight pointers, it was not the Greyhounds night. Loyola Basketball tries to WIN every game we play! We played hard until the end, diving for loose balls and running our offense, we just struggled offensively. In closing I take responsibility for the loss, however this was not some self-serving promotional plan. Curry is a great player who controls the game like Tiny Archibald (I grew up in Boston and watched him lead the Celtics to the 1981 NBA Title). He is more dangerous now because he plays the point and can score and pass.

The credit should go to Head Coach Bob McKillop, the entire Davidson team and Stephon Curry who is unselfish, humble and patient. They are a great team, and Curry is a class individual much like his coach. There was no trash-talking or dirty physical play. We took a risk for the rest of the team to beat us, and they did. Coach McKillop adjusted to a situation that they have never seen and did an outstanding job as did his star player. After watching this I only have more respect for Stephen Curry. He should be a serious candidate for player of the year.

As an American I wish we had leaders like McKillop and Curry, who could have gotten the CIA and FBI to talk so we could have prevented the 9-11 tragedy, or saw that Fannie Mae was creating a mortgage crisis coming which could cripple a country. The Davidson basketball family united the way I wish Wall Street would have instead of letting so many Americans retirement be lost. I wish his staff could have advised the administration who got us into a war in Iraq which cost us countless lives, and disabilities, countless money and has gone on longer than WWII. I know these are extreme examples to show that the Davidson basketball family adjusted, made smart choices and unselfish choices for the good of the team.

I will take responsibility for the loss, and give all the credit to the entire Davidson Basketball Family. As a mid major that is where we want to be some day. They are a winning program who does it with class. We took a risk, and it did not work. We still learn from our failures, as much as from our successes. Winning is a priority at this program as it was at the University of Maryland when I worked for Gary Williams, and at Archbishop Carroll when I worked for Carroll Holmes.

It was an honor to have our school on your show which we believe is the finest in the nation. You may print or talk about any or all of this letter. I am available 24-7 to talk to either one of you about this. You are a credit to your industry. I just wanted you to know why we did what we did, and our objective was to win the game against a top 25 team with a lottery pick. Please pray for the victims of Mumbai, I have several friends and relatives working there. We are off to Vermont to play my college roommate Mike Lonergan and the Vermont Catamounts.

Sincerely,

Jimmy Patsos
Head Basketball Coach
Loyola University

Having been a basketball coach myself, I'm the last person on earth to question another coach's motives or strategy. However — and I'm going to stick my neck out here — in my opinion, entrusting the Iraq war to Bob McKillop would not have been wise.

Jimmy Patsos, Unplugged [Albany Times-Union]
Loyola Holds Curry Scoreless, But What Was The Point? [The New York Times]

Patsos kept two men on Curry for the entire game, and Davidson of course countered by simply putting Curry down in a corner of the floor, and letting their other players take on Loyola 4-on-3. Davidson on the power play! Final: Davidson 78, Loyola 48. Greyhound fans were not amused.

"We had to play against an NBA player tonight,” Patsos explained. “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. I’m not some rookie coach.”

“Every dead ball I asked them how long they were going to do this,” Curry said he asked his shadowing defenders. “They really didn’t say anything. They weren’t very conversational about it.”

Patsos took over a team that went 1-27 in 2004 and has led them to two straight third-place finished in the MAAC, and a school-record 19 wins last season. He earned his degree in histrionics at Maryland, where he was an assistant to the easily-agitated Gary Williams for 13 seasons. Patsos got a contract extension in July, and job security can do strange things to your mind, evidently.

And since Patsos is a history major, he of course knows what we all took from the Battle of the Little Bighorn; that the triangle-and-two defense that Custer employed on Crazy Horse kept him completely without a scalp.

Curry Gets 0, Davidson Routs Loyola (Md.) 78-48 [Yahoo Sports]
The Ballad Of Jimmy Patsos [Connors Corner]

Sonya, of course, became the camera-friendly mom cheerleader of the tournament, leaving many media outlets scrambling for anything resembling a close-up shot that could adequately capture her beauty. (Chris Mottram's due diligence should be acknowledged.)

However, the above photo of the future mother-i'd-like-to-flambee comes from the 1999 Virginia Tech Hokies Volleyball media guide, which featured this photo of young Sonya Adams, the Hokies 1986 leader in aces, pre-MILF blossom.

This, if anything, shows that young Stephen's tremendous upside potential is completely legit.

Earlier this season, a great debate was raging about which of two superior college basketball players should be named Player of the Year.

Our choices at that time were simple: Did we value the smooth versatility of Kansas State's Michael Beasley, or the gritty determination of North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough? Some cast it as callow Freshman vs. Experienced Upperclassman. Some went for style vs. substance. Some even said it came down to black vs. white. In the end, it was the success of Hansbrough's team, and his ability to produce when the game was in doubt, that put him over the top and garnered him the Naismith award.

That was before the NCAA tournament started. Since then, Beasley's Wildcats flamed out in the second round, and Hansbrough has continued to prove his worth. But hold up, partner. There's a new gun in town. Stephen Curry appeals to both camps - he has been effortlessly dynamic, putting up an average of 32 points per game in four tournament appearances. He has also been gritty, willing his team back from deficits and coming through in the clutch (mostly). And he has a hot mom. So, can we go back to early March and vote him POY?

No need. The John R. Wooden award, college basketball's version of the Heisman Trophy, has been in play this entire time. Wooden award panelists had until 3 p.m. yesterday to vote, which means they saw Curry's incredible explosion in the tournament and have no doubt given it all due weight in their deliberations. Of course, Hansbrough has also been excellent thus far, but it can be argued that his supporting cast of McDonald's All Americans made his path a bit easier.

The award won't be announced until April 12, but we can all dream in the meantime. Perhaps the distinguished voters were swayed. Maybe this year The Chicken Dancing Fetus can take the prize from Beaker with a Bowl Cut. Or, heck. It could still be Beasley.

The Final Wooden Award Ballot: [WoodenAward.com]

As if there were any doubt that Stephen Curry is the star of the tournament, even if Davidson fails to reach the Final Four, it was further quashed last night. As this video provided by The Sporting Blog shows, even LBJ had to give it up for Son of Dell, Destroyer of Worlds, who is averaging over 30 a game against some rather stout defensive squads.

Davidson is now riding a 25-game winning streak, the longest in the country. See what you missed by skipping college, LeBron?