Davidson men’s team is overlooked unlike ever before. Coach Matt McKillop is OK with that

Davidson men’s basketball coach Matt McKillop made it clear Tuesday how excited he is about his team — calling out every player and every assistant coach by name, bragging on each of their strengths as if they were his own sons.

And he didn’t shy away from one matter that needed to be addressed:

This team, in at least one way, is being overlooked like it’s never been before.

“This is the first year since we joined the A10 that we have not had a player on the preseason all-conference team,” McKillop said during Davidson’s preseason media luncheon at NoDa Brewing. There are 18 players named to that team — six players on the first team, six on the second team, six on the third — and at least one Wildcat has appeared on that list since 2014.

Last year featured preseason All-A10 guard Foster Loyer. The year before featured two Davidson guys — Hyungjung Lee and Luka Brajkovic — both of whom earned postseason awards en route to their team’s at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

This year’s a different story, of course.

But it hasn’t seemed to faze McKillop all that much.

“Unlike any year that we’ve been in the A10, we have a group with incredible depth, incredible talent,” McKillop added. “And we believe that we have 13 guys who can help us win.”

A discussion about depth in today’s college basketball world might not turn a bunch of heads. It also might not be the most compelling of rebuttals to the preseason prognostication that Davidson will finish 12th in its 15-team league — particularly when you couple that with the departures of leading scorers Loyer, Sam Mennenga and Desmond Watson on a 16-16 team a year ago.

But McKillop, 40 years old and in his second year as head coach, has reason to believe Davidson has what it takes to be in every game come March.

A lot of that faith begins with Grant Huffman. The 6-foot-3 senior guard, whose play against Michigan State in the 2021 NCAA tournament as a sophomore proved there was no moment too big for him, is the only Wildcat with any preseason distinction. He made the conference’s All-Defensive team. He finished last year 11th in assists and third in assist-to-turnover ratio in the league and will be tasked with “running the team” in the absence of Loyer and Mennenga.

McKillop also spoke highly of sophomore 6-foot-11 Reed Bailey, who started every game as a freshman and averaged 6.3 points and shot sparingly but well from 3-point land (34.5% on only 29 shots), as well as redshirt senior David Skogman, a reserve player who was Davidson’s second-leading rebounder on a team that struggled, particularly early on, to snag missed shots.

There are also some compelling transfer portal guys. Jarvis Moss, the 6-foot-4 Concord native who transferred in from Stanford, has an athleticism that’ll be an asset to the Wildcats. Angelo Brizzi, a redshirt sophomore who transferred from Villanova, is already among the most trusted players on the team — a guy who his teammates want with the ball when the game is late. (This isn’t just anecdotal, either. McKillop’s staff sent out a survey to their players asking them situational questions like this — a tradition that began back when McKillop was a Davidson player — and the team expressed they wanted Brizzi with the ball.)

Davidson will show what it’s made of early in its non-conference slate. After opening at home against Division II Washington & Lee, the Wildcats face fringe Top 25 team Maryland and then either UAB or Clemson. Both games will be nationally televised.

Davidson will then play ETSU, St. Mary’s and Charlotte on the road before a four-game homestand against Wright State, Campbell, Miami (Ohio) and USC Upstate.

It’s true Davidson will look different this year. No Loyer. No Mennenga. No undersized and overlooked Steph Curry. Bob McKillop, the father of Davidson basketball who lent the sacred mantle of head coach to his son a season ago, is no longer directing the team from the sideline.

But the expectations are still high.

“Yes, we want guys who can really shoot the ball,” McKillop said. “We want guys who love to be coached and want to get into the gym every day, and who are tough as nails and hopefully athletic enough to defend how we want to defend. Who can maybe protect the rim better than we used to. Those are things that we’re always looking for.

“I think we got it right a lot more than we got it wrong this year. I don’t know that we ever know until we step on the court on Nov. 7th. But the way we felt this summer, the way we felt this preseason — right now it feels like the perfect group. And I’m very optimistic that that will not change.”

Davidson women’s basketball also expected to be strong

The Davidson women’s basketball team (14-16 a year ago) is also trying to live up to high expectations this year. The Wildcats will have to prove it early, too, with consecutive games against Wake Forest, UNC and Duke in November.

The team is equipped with veteran leaders, including fifth-year Australian Suzi-Rose Deegan and 6-foot-3 redshirt senior Elle Sutphin out of East Surry High School in Pilot Mountain, N.C., as well as Virginia Tech sophomore transfer Charlise Dunn. (VT, of course, made a run to the Final Four a year ago.)

“I believe we have a chance to make some noise,” said head coach Gayle Fulks on Tuesday. “This is by far the deepest and most talented Davidson women’s basketball team you’ve seen in the Atlantic 10.”