The College of Charleston Cougars locked down on Stephen Curry the entire game, limiting him to only 20 points on 5-for-18 shooting. No one else on the Davidson squad picked up the scoring slack. While the Cougars weren't exactly efficient on offense, they shot slightly better and grabbed more offensive rebounds to increase their opportunities.While it may have been possible for Davidson to receive an at-large bid if they lost in the SoCon Championship game, they had the bad luck of facing the second-best team in the conference in the semifinals. That will cost Davidson dearly.
Davidson's at-large chances, ultimately are doomed by their own conference. The Wildcats have a RPI near 70. Within their conference, there is no team that has a RPI under 100. With the exception of Charleston, the other ten teams in the conference have sub-170 RPIs. That completely dragged down the Davidson RPI.
As much as Davidson tried to build their resume with some challenging non-conference games, they only notched one quality win in that portion -- a neutral site win over West Virginia. They failed late in the season in the Bracket Buster game with Butler.
So instead of another chance for Stephen Curry to shine in the Big Dance, he will be off-Broadway in the NIT.
