Richmond takes full advantage of Davidson basketball’s cold shooting and sloppiness
A cold shooting night doomed Davidson against Richmond on Tuesday.
The Spiders, taking full advantage of the Wildcats’ 33.9 percent performance from the field, beat Davidson 70-64 in an Atlantic 10 game at Belk Arena.
Richmond (13-4, 3-1 Atlantic 10) also held Davidson — normally one of the league’s better shooting teams — to 24.2 percent from 3-point range (8 of 33).
“It befuddles me,” Wildcats coach Bob McKillop, whose team fell to 7-9, 1-3 in the A-10, said after the game. “I watched them shoot in practice. They’re great shooters and I think we got some very good looks.”
Except they didn’t go in.
“When you’re struggling in the season, you’ve got to make shots at home,” Kellan Grady, who led the Wildcats with 19 points on 5-of-15 shooting, said after the game. “You can’t shoot the way we did.”
Grady, a junior guard, said he missed at least three layups.
“You lost by six and miss three layups,” he said. “That’s it right there.”
Davidson also got 14 points, 15 rebounds, six assists and two steals from senior guard Jon Axel Gudmundsson. Junior guard Carter Collins added 14.
Nick Sherod’s 17 points led Richmond.
The Spiders also benefited from Davidson’s sloppiness with the ball, especially in the first half. The Spiders jumped out to a lead that swelled to as many as 13 points. The Spiders went up 33-20 on a 3-pointer by Nick Sherod with 5 minutes, 8 seconds left in the half.
Davidson got the deficit into single digits inside the final minute of the half, however. Freshman forward Hyunjung Lee converted a three-point play, making it 35-25 with a 37 seconds left. After Richmond’s Souleymane Koureissi missed with seven seconds left, Gudmundsson went the length of the floor and was fouled by Koureissi with 1.1 seconds left. Gudmundsson made both free throws and it was 35-27 at halftime.
Davidson plays at Fordham on Sunday. Richmond is at George Mason on Saturday.
And one
Richmond hardly missed leading scorer Blake Francis, a junior guard who was out with a chest injury suffered against Saint Louis last Saturday. Francis was averaging 17.6 points per game.
Lane violation
The Wildcats were fortunate to be behind by just eight points — 35-27 — at halftime. Davidson had eight turnovers during the first 20 minutes, with Richmond converting them for six points. The Wildcats had turnovers on three consecutive possessions at one point. Richmond took much better care of the ball in the first half, turning it over just twice.
ICYMI
McKillop said he doesn’t expect senior guard KiShawn Pritchett to play this season. Pritchett, who’s been out with a sore knee to this point, wasn’t with the team Tuesday.
“It’s very difficult for him to be around basketball, very difficult,” McKillop said. “Sadly, I don’t think it’s in the cards for him (to return). It’s not happening.”
Pritchett, who sat out his true freshman season with a knee injury, started all 34 games for the Wildcats last season.
The Wildcats are also without starting guard Luke Frampton, who took a personal leave of absence in November and is no longer in school.
Making sense of the numbers
6: Turnovers by Gudmundsson.
4: 1,000-point career scorers on Richmond’s team -- Sherod, Grant Golden, Jacob Gilyard and Francis. The Spiders are the only program in the country with four active 1,000-point scorers.
93.8: Free throw percentage by Richmond (15 of 16). The Spiders entered the game at 80.4 percent, which is ranked third nationally.
This story was originally published January 14, 2020 at 9:02 PM.