About Last Night

Davidson did just about everything a fan could ask for against Washington State, playing a complete game that saw the Cats not only lead wire-to-wire against the Cougars but dominate them, maintaining a lead that rarely fell below 15. I could tell you about how the individual players looked really good, how the defense was miles better than anything we saw last year, or how the offense moved the ball crisply and nailed open looks, but it's much easier to simply state that last night, the Cats looked like everything we were promised a Matt McKillop led team wants to be. But this wouldn't be an article written by me if there wasn't a but fueled by reason and logic...

In this case, it's easy to forget that the Cats have given us similar early-season performances under Matt McKillop. Last season it was the blowout win over Providence in the Bahamas. The season before it was the Asheville Invitational that saw the Cats upset Maryland on a buzzer beater followed up by a dog fight against a really good Clemson team. In Matt's first season it was an emphatic home victory over a borderline top-100 San Francisco team. As Davidson fans know, the early season vibes in each of those three seasons did not last. In fact, the wins mentioned here represented the best win each season. Unfortunately, a major hallmark of Matt McKillop's early tenure has been his teams peak in November and get considerably worse as the season progresses. This has been especially true the past two season: in 2023/24 the Cats were the 100th best team before January 1 and 140th afterwards, in 2024/25 the Cats were 94th before January 1 and 174th afterwards. The point is, these Cats are going to have to buck recent trends and prove that crushing Wazzu will not be the peak of the 2025/26 season.

The good news is that I think there are multiple reasons to believe that history will not repeat itself this season. First, this really does feel like the first Matt McKillop team that is actually built to match what he wants to do. The team is deep, illustrated by 11 players playing major minutes against Washington State (with two key pieces, Ian Platteeuw and JQ Roberts, sidelined), talented, and athletic. It has always seemed like McKillop the Younger has wanted to play faster, more aggressively, and with a lot more emphasis on the defensive end. He finally has a roster that will let him do so. Similarly, Matt McKillop finally landed the complete all-around lead guard in Sam Brown that he has been chasing. It's early, but Sam Brown looks as advertised and his presence alone should help the offense continue running smoothly, and hopefully avoid falling back into the iso-heavy habits we've seen the past two seasons.

The other major reason for optimism is that this team is nowhere near complete. Sean Logan is still playing limited minutes coming back from an ACL tear but has looked really good. He should only get better and play more minutes as he continues getting back to full-strength. Davidson is also down two major pieces, Ian Platteeuw and JQ Roberts, both bigs. Ian will add a whole another element on offense with his playmaking and JQ has the potential to be a game-changer on defense with his elite athleticism and physicality. Getting them back and fully integrated into the rotation will make the Cats even more multiple and help on both ends of the floor. Finally, this team is still really young and almost completely brand-new. Guys are still learning new roles and how to play with each other. You can only expect the team to look more connected and individual players to keep growing as they gain more experience.

Finally, it's not like the Cats played a perfect game against the Cougars that will be impossible to replicate. Specifically, the Cats struggled against pressure defense. This is not a new concern, as any Cat fan can attest, but it does provide an obvious area where Matt McKillop can coach up and improve the team. That's good, because it means this team has room to grow.

Routing Washington State made for a delightful Friday night, but I'm not quite ready to rip up my preseason concerns and change my predictions wholesale. Simply put, I need to see this team stack good performances against quality teams before I believe that history won't repeat itself. That said, I think there are very legitimate reasons to believe that this Cats team will buck recent trends.