The Opening Tip: Davidson (Shriners Children's Charleston Classic)

One of the most hyped boxing fights in the history of prizefighting occurred on March 8, 1971, when Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier squared off in a battle known as "The Fight of the Century." The undertones captured the perfect bisection of the American sports landscape of the times and remains arguably more anticipated than even Mike Tyson's return in the mid-1990s. Ali especially was a cultural flashpoint for refusing to submit to the Vietnam War's draft… pitting him against the brash and outspoken fighter against Frazier - the fighter who largely represented the establishment's cause - intensified a deep hatred between two men who hadn't lost a boxing fight between them.

Ali never lost the championship in the ring and instead watched his unified heavyweight championship land on Frazier's waist during an exile imposed by the boxing community for his refusal to enter the United States Army. He retained Lineal champion status, but fighting Frazier essentially created a situation where two undefeated boxers who were each world champions fought one another for the championship's recognition.

Their fight was major news, and their decision to sign the contract on December 30, 1970 made waves in every sports page across the country. Four pages behind it, a little known box score in the Charlotte Invitational college basketball tournament therefore received little to no recognition, and not even Boston College guard Jim O'Brien's 16 points moved much of the needle after the Eagles dethroned Davidson with a five-point, 72-67 victory in the tournament's opening round.

"Davidson took a brief lead with 1:47 left in the first half, 35-33, on a jump shot by Steve Kirley, who played with an injured back," wrote United Press International's release. "But the Eagles came back with five straight to hold a 38-33 halftime lead."

The win was a certified upset in college basketball circles. Success over the five previous years moved Davidson to within one game of the Final Four on two separate occasions, and head coach Lefty Driesell's achievements pushed him onto a radar that included an eventual move to Maryland. His 1968-1969 team was 27-3 and ranked third in the nation before a two-point loss to North Carolina in the Elite Eight, and a return to the 1970 tournament under Terry Holland marked the fourth Southern Conference championship over a five-year span.

Boston College's success over that same time - no matter how large or great - couldn't match the Wildcats. The 1967 trip to the Regional Finals aside, BC lost in the 1969 NIT Championship and was more recognizable for having hired Bob Cousy to his first coaching job. Like Driesell, he'd left for greener pastures after the Cincinnati Royals offered him a path out of college. He was replaced by Chuck Daly (yep, that Chuck Daley of the Bad Boy Pistons and the 1992 Dream Team), who led that BC team past Davidson before losing by 12 to La Salle.

"Boston College lost to La-Salle in the Charlotte Invitational final last night, 75-63," read the only line describing the game. "Jim O'Brien and Frank Fitzgerald had 15 points each in a losing cause."

BC and Davidson seldom find reasons to cross paths on a basketball court. In fact, that game in 1970 is still the only time that either team played one another. The program that produced Bill Curley, Troy Bell, Howard Eisley, Jared Dudley, Craig Smith and so many others never had many reasons to dip into the Southern Conference, the Big South or the Atlantic-10 Conference for a game against the Wildcats. Come Friday, though, the line between Mike Maloy and Stephen Curry runs squarely into the maroon and gold as part, once again, of a multi-team event in college basketball.

Here's what's on tap in Friday's Charleston Classic game against the Wildcats:

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Davidson Storylines (Kendrick Lamar Edition)

Woke up lookin' for the broccoli,
High-key, keep a horn on me, that Kamasi
IP, ownership, the blueprint is by me
-Squabble Up

Acknowledging Kendrick Lamar as one of rap's best lyricists is a chic statement after he performed at the Super Bowl with enough hidden performance Easter eggs to essentially end Drake's career (if you believed social media, at least), but he was a staple on Rubin-based playlists dating back to when we heard "King Kunta" for the first time. To this day, my wife is known for going, "the funk shall be within you" when it's time for us to get ourselves in motion for something. Bottom line: the guy can flat out write lyrics.

In that same breath, Davidson is known for flat out shooting the basketball. Through four games, the Wildcats hold one of the country's best three-point shooting percentages, and their scoring offense is adept at getting to the free throw line on a per-attempt basis while simultaneously holding the fifth-best effective field goal percentage in Division I.

Even within those performances, a well-balanced team with double-digit scorers across the board decisively earned wins over Washington State and Charlotte, which lost by seven after failing to score more than 19 points in the first half. That same Charlotte team, for what it's worth, won 19 games two years ago, so BC has to identify its defensive strategy and prevent the Wildcats from splashing the bucket by controlling the flow as much as humanly possible.

"In the first half, [Hampton] had 24 points," said head coach Earl Grant after BC defeated the Pirates on Tuesday night. "For the game, they had 52 [points], and that's something that we've done in most games this year. Offensively, we're expecting an eruption at some point because we're sharing the ball pretty well. I'm looking forward for that to happen, but in terms of our defense and our resiliency and how hard we work, I can't question the effort that the guys are giving."

Got my foot up on the gas, but somebody gotta do it.
-tv off

Sharing the basketball and moving the rock around the rotation and formation is a huge component of where BC earned success in its last two games. The ball movement into and out of the post spot creates looks at the hoop for virtually everyone, and the shooting percentage against Hampton reflected better creativity and chemistry than the grittier five-point win over Temple. As a prime example, Luka Toews leading BC with four assists makes sense with his slippery playing style as a true point guard, but Fred Payne and Aidan Shaw added three helpers by simply moving the ball as conduits in their position.

"Our goal is always to share the ball," said BC forward Boden Kapke after the team's win over Hampton. "I think that's when we're at our best, when we're helping to create for others to make our best looks. I think that's something that we've definitely been emphasizing."

Perhaps the best highlight of the night occurred when Kapke broke containment for a thunderous dunk in the late stages of the first half. He'd made a split second decision to break away from setting a pick after two defenders chased Payne at the top of the arc, and his choice to attack the paint left Payne with a lofted pass into space. Catching it in stride, Kapke crashed the rim with a violent finish that was later echoed when Shaw opted to break for the rim while the rest of the team started running its transition offense.

Simple plays? Sure, but remember that the creativity and idea to make a move within a certain realm involves trusting teammates within their own situational awareness. It's all non-verbal, and it's part of where BC is quickly developing.

And I love myself,
I love myself,
I love myself,
I love my…self
-i

The seven-point win over Charlotte and the most recent four-point win over Bowling Green gave Davidson a bit of tough leather after the season-opening blowouts over Division III DeSales and the Washington State team that's currently adrift in the West Coast Conference, but the home victory over the Falcons illustrated how the program that produced Steph Curry really isn't afraid to launch - and hit - three-pointers.

Three players combined for 51 of the team's 91 points, but the greater number occurred on the 11-for-23 shots that produced a 47.8 percent shooting rate from outside. A team total shot 54.2 percent from the floor, and Penn transfer Sam Brown and Wake Forest transfer Parker Friedrichsen are starting to find ways to share the wealth in the team's backcourt. For BC, that means the three-point shooting that's been holding the offense back a bit needs to start hitting shots.

"[We] are probably going to have throw out some of the games in order to do it, but this team is going to be around a 35 percent three-point shooting team," said Grant about his Eagles. "As long as we get the right looks, we have to continue to take them, but that's the encouraging thing."

From a statistical standpoint, BC's three-point shooting percentage is eight percentage points below the national average and 20 spots above last place in Division I. The Eagles haven't been getting to the line as often as they've been taking shots in comparison to the rest of the nation, and their effective field goal percentage is hovering around 45 percent when the national average is over 50 percent.

That said, this is all occurring while the defense is in the top-third of college basketball in nearly every metric. Opponents are shooting a nation-worst 57 percent against BC, and the Eagles are one of the top teams in the country at not making mistakes. They're simply not turning the ball over unless it's stolen by defenders - 4.3 percent of turnovers are non-steal based - and they're blocking shots with lethal efficiency.

"We've played good basketball without shooting great," explained Grant, "so if we can continue to maintain our defense and clean up a few things on offense, when the ball starts going in a few more times, the flood gates are going to open. We're expecting that soon."

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Question Box

How do you defend a three-point shot?

Core basketball defense tells defenders to push shooters away from the basket by blocking dribble and passing lanes, so a three-point shot is essentially the answer to a team that's willing to pack its players inside of the outside arc. Looking at fundamentals, the three-pointer is legitimately the answer to a strong defense, and it's a reason why the more efficient volume-shooting teams are looking to bomb the basket from outside.

Defending the three isn't as easy as simply standing a guard or forward in front of the shooter or else the zone defense would work wonders against it. Instead, the idea of taking away a passing lane or a dribble motion forces shooters to use off-hand movements for poor looks at the basket. Against Davidson, look for BC to identify which shooters are less capable on their left or right, and then watch the defenders use their hands to block the passing lanes. If Davidson is shooting a number of rushed threes in the final 10 seconds of a possession, even the paced tempo of an outside shooting team won't receive a fine look at the rim.

Oh, and box out the rebound. That's a necessity at all times.

How do different rebounders successfully crash the boards?

Donald Hand, Jr. grabbed a combined 14 defensive rebounds against Temple and Hampton because he understood how to place his body in a position to grab the basketball. On multiple occasions, he read the physics of the ball's angle to move himself away from the rim or glass before either taking flight or following the shot to the corner, and his hand placement on the way to the ball prevented him from taking fouls against bigger forwards who are supposed to patrol the paint.

Davidson's best rebounder over the first four games is a seven-footer in Ian Platteeuw, but the freshman is one of the more disciplined ball handlers that BC's going to face. He can facilitate from the paint as part of an inside-out and floor-based movement, so Hand, Kapke, Shaw and Jayden Hastings will need to rotate around him by using vision and ball awareness.

Can I come back from this one?

I learned something on Thursday when my wife decided to pull over and give me the wheel when she took her car through one of those tunnel car washes that's in our hometown. She'd been asking me for weeks to take her SUV through the car wash, and I'd admittedly been putting it off because I assumed she just wanted me to pay for it (sometimes there are just some things that you don't want to buy… I thought hers was a car wash).

Boy, was the look on my face one of shock and awe when she pulled into the driveway and asked me to drive through the car wash in the driver's seat. She admitted to me that she doesn't like getting the car into neutral while on the grooves, and the car wash in our town has a bit of a reputation for people occasionally hitting the gas a little too quickly on the exit.

Three days after I made the "six-seven" story, I think I'm due for a timeout. So if anyone needs me during this game, I'll be sitting in a corner by myself, thinking about what I've done.

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BC-Davidson X Factor

I don't care what other people say. I fight every day to be the best player I can. -Steve Nash

A true point guard focuses on facilitating an offense by making teammates better with the ball. They aren't pure shooters and don't score first when the ball's in their hands, so they're essentially dying off in a basketball era constructed primarily around a player's ability to put the ball in the hole. The concept of a traditional big man is well-publicized as being outdated and a bit archaic compared to the Euro-style seven-footers capable of hitting the three-pointer, so it's a bit less known to watch how Steve Nash-style point guards just aren't part of game plans.

Luka Toews, in that regard, is a bit of a throwback because his numbers bear more resemblance to the traditional Nash-type numbers of the mid-2000s. Part of it was the Mike D'Antoni offense run by the Phoenix Suns, but Nash posted MVP numbers despite never averaging 20 points per game. In fact, his MVP voting in 2005 made him the top player in the NBA despite being the lowest average scorer of anyone in the race's top-13 of voting (shoutout to whomever gave a single vote to PJ Brown and Marcus Camby).

Nash instead earned his numbers by distributing the basketball, and his numbers over a five-year or six-year span rivaled Magic Johnson and John Stockton. Not to compare, but that's exactly the type of game that's now expected out of Toews after he took a massive step forward in his four-assist night against Hampton.

"I know my team, and I see what we have," said Grant. "We're going to use that to the best of our ability, and we're a work in progress. We have a lot of growth to do, and we're probably at 65 percent of our capacity right now. We have to be working, and we have to be patient. We can't get discouraged, and we have to keep showing up."

Four assists doesn't seem like much, but an extrapolation of his touches reveals a 49 percent assist rate, which means that 49 percent of BC's scoring touches went through his hands. He was used on 14 percent of the team's overall possessions despite only playing 20 minutes, and his offensive rating moves him to just under 110 points per 100 possessions. That means his numbers weren't otherworldly, but his effective numbers when he was on the floor turned him into a scoring and facilitation machine.

*****
Scoreboard Watching

Thanksgiving week in college basketball means that we're finally able to enjoy the multi-team event tournaments that add just a little something extra to the start of each season. For the majority of us, that also means constant basketball on the television as teams jockey through double-sided and triple-sided brackets with unknown start times hanging over the next day.

My case and point occurs on Friday afternoon when Utah State and Tulane kick off the Charleston Classic at TD Arena at 1 p.m. The winner and loser face either Davidson or BC after they play at 3:30 p.m., and the remainder of the Charleston Classic field continues through the night when West Virginia plays Clemson at 6:30 p.m. and Georgia draws Xavier at 9 p.m. Knowing that a long game or an overtime game pushes those start times into the later hours is a part of postseason basketball, so this is a great way for everyone to start simulating how March might look and feel.

Beyond that, there's just a great number of non-conference games, and rather than go one-by-one, I'll try to hit some of the highlights. The Baha Mar Bahamas Championship kicked off on Thursday with Purdue beating Memphis by nine, and a field that's further including Wake Forest and No. 15 Texas Tech offers a great opportunity for any of the involved conferences to earn a non-conference win.

Elsewhere in college basketball, Friday delivers a 4 p.m. tip-off between No. 23 Wisconsin and No. 9 Brigham Young as part of the Bad Boy Mowers Series in Salt Lake City, and No. 6 Louisville draws undefeated Cincinnati as part of the Hoops Classic event. Elsewhere in the ACC, that West Virginia-Clemson game tips off opposite the Louisville-Cincinnati game in the Palmetto Bracket of the Charleston Classic, and Stanford draws Seattle in a straight non-conference game that's a little sneakier than advertised.

Outside of the ACC, South Carolina plays Butler in the Mountain Division of the Greenbrier Tip-Off, and there's that game where Xavier plays Georgia in the Palmetto Bracket in Charleston. Beyond that, call me crazy, but I actually think the Utah State-Tulane game ahead of the BC game is going to be a really good basketball game, and count me in for the 9 p.m. start between New Orleans and Fresno State. I also can't quite put my finger on it, but Northern Illinois's trip to Loyola Chicago could be spunky.

*****
This Random Day In History

On November 21, 1980, roughly 350 million people around the world turned on their television sets to find out who shot J.R. Ewing as part of the "Dallas" season premiere. Exactly eight months earlier, the character played by Larry Hagman was shot at the end of the show's third season, and the resulting fever pitch left people losing their minds at what could have happened to the evil and conniving Ewing son. Directorial staff filmed every actor and even some crew members to ensure that the actual shooter wasn't revealed until the exact television moment, and it got to the point where betting parlors in the United States and Europe began accepting wagers on which character held responsibility.

Until that point, cliffhangers weren't commonplace, and shows often went into their summer breaks with tying up or wrapping up loose ends from their season-long storylines. The phenomena of figuring out who shot J.R. Ewing, though, forever altered that history and left shows with the option of generating heat for their summer breaks by leaving viewers with unanswered questions.

On the back end, it also meant that canceled shows seldom answered their leftover questions if they were ended without figuring out their endings, and I blame Dallas for the reason why The Sopranos left me with that blank screen ending. Even the actual ending of Dallas in the final episode was a cliffhanger that wasn't resolved, though the show's creators tied up loose ends when they produced a reunion move in the 1990s.

*****
Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts

Offense is spacing and spacing is offense. -Chuck Daly

Coach Daly is known primarily for building the Bad Boy Pistons into the group that's either loved or loathed depending on whether or not someone is a fan of another team or actually from Detroit (note: I hate the Bad Boys.). He knew, though, that a team couldn't play as a single tactical unit unless it utilized pieces of their personalities. He built the Bad Boys by fusing Isaiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer into the attitudes of players like Adrian Dantley and Dennis Rodman, and he repeated the steps by fusing the greatest collection of talent ever assembled into the Dream Team.

Beating a team like Davidson doesn't require Boston College to slam the door on any one particular area, but this game is the perfect opportunity for the Eagles to continue building their style out of the different personalities and images portrayed on a basketball court. It's gritty, not pretty, but the players dictate where that grittiness goes. On Friday afternoon, the opportunity to battle an Atlantic-10 Conference team for just the second time in program history (dating back to when it was in the SoCon) is a chance for Earl Grant to relive his roots and illustrate just how much BC can identify with the type of play that creates winners.

Boston College and Davidson tip-off at 3:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon from TD Arena in Charlteson, South Carolina. The game can be seen as part of ESPN2's nationally televised coverage with streaming available through ESPN's direct-to-consumer platform on Internet and mobile device apps.

The Opening Tip: Davidson (Shriners Children's Charleston Classic)

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Jayden Hastings

Boden Kapke

Fred Payne

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