3-guard lineups aren’t new, but here’s how Davidson trio is poised to fluster defenses

It was the 1970-71 college basketball season and the germ of an idea was planted in the mind of Bob McKillop, a junior guard at Hofstra who aspired to one day be a coach.

While that season might best be remembered for UCLA winning its fifth national championship - or for Villanova having to vacate its runner-up finish because star Howard Porter had already signed with an agent – another story unfolded at Fordham, located in the Bronx and just a few miles from McKillop and Hofstra’s Long Island campus.

Coach Digger Phelps was doing things differently at Fordham. Instead of playing a traditional lineup of a center, two forwards and two guards, the Rams often hit the floor with five guards, driving opposing coaches crazy by stretching their confounded defenses to the limit. It worked well enough that Fordham went 26-3 and made the NCAA tournament.

Skip ahead to the 2017-18 season and to Davidson, where McKillop enters his 29^th year as coach. When the Wildcats hit the Belk Arena floor Friday for their season opener against Charleston Southern, they’ll do so with a starting lineup that will include three point guards – sophomores KiShawn Pritchett and Jon Axel Gudmundsson and freshman Kellan Grady -- and a forward – senior Peyton Aldridge – who is also adept at handling and passing the ball.

“It became embedded in my psyche,” McKillop said of how the Phelps-coached Rams (that was the only season Phelps spent at Fordham before he left for Notre Dame) played and how it would eventually affect his approach to the game. “That was the darling team in New York. They had five interchangeable pieces. All five could play point guard. They were small, but it became a very difficult matchup.

“I always said if I could, I’d love to have five interchangeable parts at Davidson. I almost do this season.”

McKillop has taken many of Phelps’ principles and translated them over time into what is now Davidson’s signature free-flowing offense, one that encourages freelancing but is infused with screens, cuts, handoffs, back-door plays and 3-pointers.

So when McKillop mulled how to replace graduated point guard Jack Gibbs, who left as the program’s third-leading career scorer, this is what he came up with. It’s not the first time he’s played with multiple point guards in his starting lineup. It’s worked before with Stephen Curry and Jason Richards; Nik Cochran, JP Kuhlman and Tom Droney; and, most recently, Gibbs and Brian Sullivan two seasons ago.

What’s different about what McKillop describes as this season’s “point guard by committee” of Pritchett, Gudmundsson and Grady is the different yet complementary style each player brings to the Wildcats. Also, there are other guard options coming off Davidson’s bench, including seniors Rusty Reigel and Jordan Watkins and freshman Carter Collins.

“I can name a lineup where we can throw out there five guys who can bring the ball up,” said Reigel. “That’s crazy.”

One of them is Aldridge, a versatile All-Atlantic 10 player who is on pace to pass Gibbs on the program’s scoring list behind only Curry and John Gerdy.

“We have five guys who can bring it up or even get a rebound and push the ball up the court,” said Aldridge, who averaged 20.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists last season. “We all have the ability to adjust and get to our spot. It messes up the defense when they’re trying to get back and match up. We’ve got different guys in the corner and it gets the other team mixed up. It’s another weapon we have.”

McKillop said he’ll trust the point guards on who will bring the ball up the court and when. Sometimes he’ll draw up a play in a timeout for one of the point guards to direct.

Something else about the three point guards: their youth. They’ll play together for at least three more seasons.

This story was originally published November 9, 2017 at 5:21 PM with the headline "3-guard lineups aren’t new, but here’s how Davidson trio is poised to fluster defenses."