A rivalry that caught on: Charlotte, Davidson men’s basketball set to meet for 50th time
It might seem hard to believe now, but there were people who wondered more than 40 years ago if the Charlotte 49ers-Davidson men’s basketball rivalry would really catch with the public.
“We treated it as just another game in preparations,” then-Davidson coach Eddie Biedenbach said in February 1979, after the Wildcats and 49ers met for the first time.
But a near-capacity crowd of 8,794 jammed the old Charlotte Coliseum — now Bojangles Coliseum — and watched the 49ers win 93-83.
On Wednesday night, the two teams will meet for the 50th time in what has become an enduring local rivalry.
This year’s game will be at Halton Arena on the 49ers’ campus, with tipoff at 8 p.m.
The 49ers’ women’s team faces Mercer in a 5:30 p.m. opener of the doubleheader.
Charlotte leads the series 31-18, including a 68-66 victory last season when Jackson Threadgill of Davidson Day High sank a 3-pointer for the decisive points.
Biedenbach said in 1979 that Davidson learned in a hurry that the Charlotte community took the rivalry seriously.
“When we got here and saw the crowd, it changed,” he said at the time. “The atmosphere was electric.”
The teams played twice annually for a number of seasons but trimmed it to a once-a-year game in the late 1990s.
Along the way, the Charlotte-Davidson rivalry picked up some hardware. Wednesday night’s game will be the 38th battle for the Hornets’ Nest Trophy.
The 49ers enter with a 4-2 record. Davidson is 3-3. Charlotte is coming off a victory Saturday against Georgia State, in which they rallied from a 13- point deficit.
Davidson, which owns a victory earlier this season against Maryland, is trying to shake off an 89-55 loss Friday night at 23rd-ranked St. Mary’s.
Charlotte ranks seventh nationally in defense, allowing an average of 58 points a game. The 49ers have held five opponents — Maine, Liberty, Utah Valley, George Mason and Georgia State — to season lows in scoring.
That defense will get a test against a Davidson team featuring three players shooting better than 50 percent from the floor. Wing Connor Kochera leads the group, shooting 57.9 percent.
Senior guard Grant Huffman ranks among the top 10 in the Atlantic 10 in assist-turnover ratio (2.36) and assists per game (4.3).
