By Joedy McCreary
Associated Press
ELON ó Davidson is difficult enough to beat when Stephen Curry is putting up big numbers. The rest of his teammates are clicking, too, and that’s why the Wildcats once again are starting to look like a tough tournament out.
Curry scored 26 points and reached the 2,500-point mark for his career, but four teammates also reached double figures Monday night to help Davidson tune up for the postseason with a 90-78 victory over Elon.
“We just want everyone to have confidence that, if they get an opportunity to hit a shot or make a play, they’ve got to be willing to do it,” Curry said. “Going into the tournament, it’s do or die. People are going to play you different ways and you’ve got to adjust, so they’re taking the ball out of my hands and my teammates have got to step up.
“And if they do what they did tonight,” he added, “they’ll be fine.”
The nation’s leading scorer hit the 20-point mark for the 15th straight game to lead the Wildcats (25-6, 18-2 Southern Conference).
Davidson shot 63 percent in the second half while at times revving up an offense that carried it within a missed 3-pointer of last year’s Final Four.
Now the Wildcats are ready for the ride to begin again, starting with an attempt to claim a fourth straight SoCon tournament title. They’ve secured the top seed for the event that begins Friday in Chattanooga, Tenn.
“You do want that feeling, Monday night, 11 o’clock, when you win the championship,” Curry said. “But there’s a lot of work that goes into that, so we’ve done what we need to do so far.”
Bryant Barr scored 18 points, Steve Rossiter added 17, Will Archambault finished with 13 and Andrew Lovedale had 11 for Davidson.
“I have a great confidence and belief and trust that this is something that we can have every night,” Wildcats coach Bob McKillop said. “All of these guys are very capable. We’ve been in search of this for a significant portion of the year. For them to play with the confidence they did … I think we answered a lot of questions.”
Monty Sanders had 17 points and Brett James added 16 to lead Elon (10-19, 7-13). Ola Atoyebi contributed 13 as the Phoenix lost for the sixth time in nine games.Working mostly against 5-foot-9 freshman Josh Bonney, the 6-3 Curry shot 8-for-16 and hit just two of his six 3-point attempts, but that was enough to silence a sold-out crowd of 1,710 that included temporary seating inside the intimate gym.