Head Coach: Matt McKillop (31-33); 3rd Season
Theme song: Long Run by Fly Union
Last Season: It would take work for Matt McKillop to take over for his father.
There is no other explanation for why Davidson struggled the last two seasons. Most fans will point to the horrific drop-off on offense—defensively, this team has taken steps forward, which they never did to the extent they should’ve when Bob was coach.
Matt is a pretty solid recruiter who has supervised steady growth from the guys he’s brought in since they’ve been in Davidson, North Carolina.
I don’t know why they can’t be better than their record, but this team is painfully average, and it drives me up the wall. Three-point shooting, once a staple of this program, has taken a serious hit in the last two seasons. Davidson finished 295th in 2023 and 255th in 2024 in Kenpom’s three-point percentage metric (as a team).
Davidson got off to a 10-3 start in the OOC, including an upset against Maryland and a close contest with Clemson, a team that would run to the elite eight. Once we got to A10 play, Davidson had difficulty holding themselves together. Losing their finals six games, including their lone A10 tournament game, they lost by an average margin of 9.1 points per game.
This roster looks so thin on paper to start 2024-2025, which scares most away. There are many questions surrounding depth, talent, and, of course, if the coach in charge is the one Davidson needs for its future. Unfortunately, someone had to be last for my previews; sorry, Belky.
Where I stand with Davidson is where I stand with most schools that keep the hires in-house following legends stepping down: start new. Will this be the year the school decides on Matt McKillop?
Arrivals: Zach Laput (Bentley), Nick Coval (F), Roberts Blums (F), Manie Jones (F), Joe Hurlburt (Colorado)
Departures: Grant Huffman, Jarvis Moss (T), Rikus Schulte (T), Achile Spadone (T), Angelo Brizzi (T), David Skogman (T)
Returnees: Connor Kochera*, Riccardo Ghedini, Hunter Adam, Mike Loughnane, Reed Bailey, Bobby Durkin, Sean Logan
Potential Strengths: Davidson’s main weaknesses under Bob McKillop, if any, were their average defensive teams. In their best seasons, the Wildcats were able to hold up defensively. Under Matt McKillop, they’ve transformed into one of the more robust defenses in the sport—finishing 86th in Kenpom’s adjusted defense metric. Of all the returnees, everyone posted a positive defensive net rating last year (the average being +1.24 of the returning players).
Sean Logan went from a little-used freshman to their defensive anchor last season. Not only did he lead the team in almost every sabermetric, but Logan averaged a whopping 1.8 blocks per game, with the second closest being at 0.4. Despite their generic statistics saying otherwise, he and Hunter Adam make for a solid defensive frontcourt. Both players will receive more offensive chances this season while maintaining their rock-solid status on defense.
Connor Kochera brings much-needed leadership to Davidson. Last season, he was one of the league’s more effective shooters, with a 36% clip from distance. He’ll likely serve as the first option again, alongside Reed Bailey, who took enormous leaps in his sophomore season. I expect both to challenge for all-conference honors this season while leading Davidson’s offensive attack.
Division II transfer Zach Laput will be an essential piece this coming season. Laput, a fifth-year transfer, averaged 18.4 points per game on 50% shooting from the floor last season at Bentley. At minimum, Laput will be a shooter for the Wildcats.
Davidson’s replacement for David Skogman is Colorado transfer Joe Hurlburt. Standing at 6’9”, Hurlburt didn’t play much at Colorado, given the team’s depth, but he should be a backup for the Wildcats.
Freshman Nick Coval is the only true freshman on the roster who plays point guard. His high school statistics indicate that he can score at a high rate, finishing with over 2,000 career points, but his value comes from his passing ability. In one of their state playoff games to advance to the quarterfinals, Coval dropped 27 points, five rebounds, and six assists. He’ll be an essential player to develop going forward.
Other freshmen include Maine Jones, an import from the NBA Global Academy in Australia. Jones is one of those athletic, 6’5” wings with the fundamental skillset to contribute immediately. With how thin this roster is (more on that later), he and fellow neophyte Roberts Blums should see honest minutes this season—an anomaly for freshmen in today’s college basketball climate.
Potential Weaknesses: This is one of Davidson’s slimmest rosters in some time. Their depth scares the daylights out of me because they have only so many options offensively. There is a prominent trio to carry the offensive load, but after that, shot distribution is everything but certain.
Who will help the Wildcats put points up on the board? Logan, in theory, makes the most sense to step up and be that guy, but he’s known more for his defensive strengths. Everyone else on the roster is either a role player or someone who just can’t score like that.
This team doesn’t have a point guard, and that’s an enormous problem. Teams who lack floor generals tend to struggle mightily—we saw this last season in the A10 with Fordham’s point guard carousel. Purdue had a similar problem while they had Zach Edey until Braden Smith emerged. Coval, though a freshman, is the only true point guard on the roster—is he ready to see the floor and control the game? Ideally, Laput would take over the starting point guard role based off seniority, though I find him better in a scoring oriented role.
For a team comprised of elite shooters, you’d think they would do some running. Instead, Davidson favors a slower style with their program. The slower style has come back to bite them, making it hard for Davidson to mount comebacks in games they may trail by large numbers. On the contrary, they may be unable to keep up with teams pushing the tempo to beat the Wildcats.
If Davidson gets into a track meet, I would anticipate teams running them out of the gym—again, initially breaking down the roster, the depth is just not there to keep up the pace. Davidson, historically, also doesn’t boast elite athletes on its team, and it doesn’t have one of those types of players this season. I question how they will keep up with the A10’s most athletic teams.
Under Matt McKillop, the three-point shooting has been subpar. In his first season, the team shot 31.9%, ranking 295th on Kenpom. Last season was worse, with a team percentage of 30.7%, ranking well outside the Kenpom 300 (they ranked 323rd). This was once a staple element of this program turned national brand (shoutout to Steph Curry), but it has now become a weak point. Will the distance shooting improve? It’s such a wild card for Davidson at this point, but one would hope it doesn’t fall through the floor.
X-Factor: Bobby Durkin will be a part of the offensive trio, perhaps even leading the charge on offense. He was robbed of a nod on the all-freshman team, but the eventual all-conference pick means more in the grand scheme. Durkin is the total package offensively: an incredible shooter who can go off the bounce from anywhere on the floor. While Kochera may be the first option due to his experience, Durkin is more talented, possibly leading to him being the first option.
Outlook: Matt McKillop will be tested this season between the thin roster, the guys he has to continue to develop, and the problems he’ll have to fix. While a decent nucleus returns that can hold itself up on defense, there are far too many offensive questions for this team that could see them as one of the worst teams in the league. There is a solid chance, if this season goes the way I am forecasting, we could also start discussing whether or not Matt McKillop is the one who should be captaining this ship—Davidson does have one major disadvantage, and that’s the lack of graduate programs, hindering their ability to bring in serious transfers—but this program has navigated through that more often than not, and it shouldn’t be this suboptimal.
