Southern Conference report

SportsLine Report
March 1, 2000

In the Paint

The Wildcats have seen both sides of the Southern Conference fence this season. Davidson owns a victory at College of Charleston, which was the first SoCon loss by the Cougars, but Davidson lost the next game to The Citadel. The Wildcats also dropped their home finale to Georgia Southern, 88-87.

That has not dampened coach Bob McKillop's optimism.

"We're coming into the tournament feeling good about ourselves," McKillop said. "We've shown we can beat people, and even the loss to Georgia Southern showed we can overcome a 16-point deficit. At least we went through that late-game situation."

Davidson's season is a microcosm of the Southern Conference, where numerous upsets dotted the schedule. "Top to bottom, this is the strongest I've seen the Southern Conference since I've been here," McKillop said. "Realistically, every team can win this."

The Wildcats are the North Division's No. 2 seed for the second successive year and Davidson has been first or second in the North five years in a row.

The Wildcats might have the tallest lineup in the Southern Conference when coach McKillop uses 7-2 Martin Ides at center, 6-8 Stephen Marshall at power forward and 6-7 Landry Kosmalski at small forward.

The emergence of freshman Wayne Bernard, who has played remarkably well after the Wildcats lost forward Davor Halbauer and Emeka Erege to injuries, has been a big key to Davidson's charge.

"We've got a very distinguished freshman group," McKillop said. "Wayne averaged about 26 minutes, which is many more minutes that we expected, but he has proven invaluable with Erege and Halbauer going down."

NOTEWORTHY: Interestingly, the Wildcats upset the North and South No. 1 seeds on their home courts. ... Marshall enters the tournament averaging 15.9 points and 6.1 rebounds a game. Marshall also has a Player of the Week honor under his belt this season. Marshall and Kosmalski both earned first team all-SoCon honors this season. ... Kosmalski was 11th in the league in scoring at 14.0 and third with 8.6 rebounds per game. ... Bernard averaged nine points per game and earned a spot on the league's all-freshman team.

THIS WEEK: The Wildcats' bye will allow them to watch the first-round game between Wofford and VMI, and that winner plays Davidson on Friday night. Davidson won't have much time to rest if it wins in the quarterfinals, because the semifinal game would be about 15 hours later.