Article about Mid-Majors

Mid-Majors: Don't Change The Name

There has been a lot of talk recently of doing away with the title of “mid-major.” These comments are spawning from the recent success of mid-major programs across America....

These mid-major programs are now kicking at the heels of the major programs for a few reasons.....

....mid-major teams don’t have players leaving early and, conversely, have more seniors and more unity than a major program that has a quicker rotation and influx of players. One such team in 2006 was the Davidson Wildcats who won the Southern Conference to get a bid in the Big Dance. Davidson had seven seniors on its roster and all seven were key contributors. I asked a member of that team, Brendan Winters, a 2005 Honorable Mention All-American, what he thought. Winters carries a similar belief, “Individually, the ‘major’ players will always be more talented, but as a team, I think the mid-majors will always have better chemistry in general because they are able to build up over four years.” Combine these two factors along with a great pool of players in America and abroad and the results are sure to follow.

Random 2 year old article about Brendan

Faithful son's burden: It's not always easy being a child of famous fathers
Found this through Google today. It's from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Winters comments on NBA workouts

Here's the content from the Charlotte Bobcats' website:

BRENDAN WINTERS • 6-5 • 205 LBS.
GUARD • DAVIDSON • SENIOR

(On previous workouts) I worked out for Indiana last Thursday (June 15) and have one in Detroit on Tuesday (June 20). Hopefully I will have two or three more in the future.

(On working out for the Bobcats) It was really cool having your home team bring you in for a workout. They give you a chance to get a look and the possibility of playing for an NBA team.

(On draft expectations) I’m pretty realistic. I would like to take it one step at a time. If I don’t get drafted, I’ll try to make a summer league team and play my way up to be invited to a training camp and then go from there. If I make the training camp, and make the team, then I’ll play in the NBA. If not, I’ll go over to Europe and play.

(On nervousness of the workout) Honestly, I wasn’t as nervous today as my first one in Indiana. I had one under my belt today. It’s always a little nerve-racking to go out there and prove yourself pretty much in front of famous people, and coaches who are going to critque your game. It’s always a lot of fun though.

(On his father Brian Winters) My dad has been my number one mentor from day one. He is a guy that has always believed in me, and with his NBA experience, I know I can always rely on him for advice. He will always tell me what to expect, what to look for, and how to do things. He got a workout for me that I can do on my own that helps me get in shape, and simulates the drills that the majority of NBA teams do.

Brendan undrafted...not a surprise

I figured it was wishful thinking, and I was right. Brendan did not get drafted. In fact, in glancing at the list of draftees, I don't recall seeing anybody from the Southern Conference that was drafted. This is hardly unexpected.

Perhaps he will go to Europe, or maybe get some type of free-agent contract with an NBA team and play in the NBDL? Brandon Williams didn't get drafted after he graduated, but did eventually get some time in the NBA with free-agent contracts here and there (even got a championship ring with San Antonio, if I'm not mistaken.) Even if nothing pans out with pro ball, Brendan can certainly be proud of what he has accomplished. Also, being a Davidson grad, he shouldn't have any worries about "life after basketball" (whenever that may be).

NBA Draft tonight

I didn't realize the NBA draft was tonight until I started posting all this stuff on Brendan. I don't get all excited about the draft in any sport. I will, however, be interested to see if Brendan gets drafted. That would obviously be very exciting for Brendan, his family, and all of us Davidsonians.

Good luck, Brendan! We'll all be rooting for you!

Yet another NBA workout for Winters

Pistons work out 16 draft prospects over four days

From The Detroit News

AUBURN HILLS -- For a team with one pick -- the 60th and last -- in Wednesday's NBA draft, the Pistons have had a busy week...

...Tuesday, the Pistons looked at Nick George, a 6-6 forward from Virginia Commonwealth; Jeff Horner, a 6-3 guard from Iowa; Brendan Winters, a 6-5 guard from Davidson and the son of former NBA coach Brian Winters; and Vincent Grier, a 6-5 guard from Minnesota.

More Brendan Winters NBA workout links

Bobcats official site "Draft Central" lists Brendan.

Charlotte Observer article.

Another blurb about Winters and the Bobcats

"Of the players I’ve researched for the 50th pick, I think that Curtis Withers and Brendan Winters are the best choices. And no, I’m not just saying that because they both played ball in the Charlotte area!"

This is from the same site as the prior post. Click here to read Bobcat Bonfire.

Article about Brendan's workout with the Bobcats

Click here for link to article.

Player workouts continued yesterday with Ronnie Brewer (Arkansas), Pops Mensah-Bonsu (George Washington), Brendan Winters (Davidson), Jasper Johnson (Delta State University), and Viktor Keirou (Russian Superleague).

Out of these players, I think Charlotte should really consider Brendan Winters from Davidson. I am not saying that just because Davidson is right down the street (literally) either. Winters, originally from Denver, CO, was named Southern Conference Player of the Year this year. He was third in the leage for pointer per game with 16.7 and second in three point percentage with 43.4 (13th nationally). He also scored double-digits in all but one game and averaged 5.1 rebounds. So I’ve picked a shooter.

However, Winters is not just a shooter. His defense has improved dramatically over the last four years, making him a very well-rounded player. He has great work ethic and passion, not to mention genetics. His father, Brian, was a two-time NBA All-Star. Once with the LA Lakers and once with the Milwaukee Bucks, and he coached at Golden State for a short period.

So Brendan has the ability, genes, work ethic, and passion. What is the downside? He’s 6′5″, 205 pounds, a lanky frame for the NBA. He definitely needs to pack on some muscle. But most college players heading to the NBA do, very few draftees are 100% ready to play come the first game. Even Michael Jordan had to work on areas of his game.

I just think Winters would be a good fit for the team, and Coach Bickerstaff stated that he played well and has great hands. I will be going to the Bobcats Draft Party next Wednesday where Bickerstaff, MJ, and the third round pick will all be calling in to talk to us. I promise to take good notes!

Winters to workout for Charlotte Bobcats

DAVIDSON, N.C. — Brendan Winters, a four-year starting guard/forward for the Davidson College men’s basketball team will workout for the Charlotte Bobcats of the National Basketball Association Sunday, June 18. The session for Winters will be his second with an NBA club as he displayed his skills for the Indiana Pacers earlier this week.

Click here for entire article from Davidson official website.

A little break from the Davidson thing

Here's a fun video highlight film of Magic Johnson's best moments. We can always pretend that he went to Davidson, I guess. (Note: I did not put these videos together. I did not pick the music. I just linked to them through YouTube.com.)



Here's another video of Michael Jordan highlights for your viewing pleasure. At least Davidson is in North Carolina....so can't we sort of claim Jordan?



When is that Brandon Williams highlight video coming out???

New Zealand is in the house

We had another visitor from overseas. This time it was from New Zealand. This reader found us through Yahoo, by searching "Davidson College Blog". I guess this visitor found what he/she was looking for. I would post about something more interesting for you all to read about, but the world of Davidson College basketball is a bit slow right now. Did I mention that I figured out how to post video on here?

I figured out how to post video

Jason Richards hits a 3 against Wofford on February 11, 2006.

More Academic Awards for DC Hoops

Davidson Takes Home Two Academic Awards in the Southern Conference

"Davidson earned the league's Barrett-Bonner Award for the 2004-05 academic year by having the highest percentage of its student-athletes on the league's academic honor roll. Since the inception of the award in 1994, Davidson has been the recipient of the award 12 of the 13 years."

"Davidson also received the Graduation Rate Award for maintaining the highest graduation rate of its student-athletes. The award, presented to the member institution with the highest graduation rate for its student-athletes over the past five years as recorded in the annual NCAA Graduation Rates Report, is the fourth straight honor for the Wildcats and sixth overall since the award’s inception in 1994."

International readers keep coming

We have a reader in Istanbul, Turkey that keeps returning, last visiting on May 14th. We still don't know who this visitor is and what his/her connection is to Davidson Basketball. Perhaps he/she can let us know?


Also, we had another reader in Sydney, Australia that stayed on the site for a good while on May 16th, reading several pages of material. Who could this reader be?

I find the international connections to be very intriguing. If you have any idea who these people are, please let us know.

Davidson 24th in final mid-major poll

CollegeInsider.com moved Davidson up from 25th to 24th in the final poll of the season. The good people at CollegeInsider.com felt the need to tell us that the next poll is due out on November 6, 2006.....go figure.

Congrats on another outstanding season and post-season run!!

Davidson Hands Out 2005-06 Athletic Awards

Men’s Basketball
Wildcat Defensive/Rebounding — Thomas Sander
D.G. Martin Hustle Award — Matt McKillop
John M. Belk MVP — Brendan Winters

Women’s Basketball
110% Award — Tia Washington
Coach’s Award — Brynn Kelly
MVP — Jessica Mitchell

Click here for full article from Davidson official website.

Memories of Davidson - from another blog

Click here for the full page written by someone named Laura. I don't particularly care for her politics on her blog, but she does really have some fond things to say about Davidson.

It's long, but I like reading other people's thoughts about our little town and school, so here it is:

Returning to Davidson after an absence of 10 years was like flipping through the anatomy books that use the clear pages to show the circulatory system, the nervous system, the organs and finally, the page with the skin and you have a whole person. I walked through town, taking pictures and being shocked by the changes, when I would suddenly see one of the clear sheets of nerves or skin peeled back, revealing what was there 10 years ago. I might have changed a lot, the town and the college might have changed a lot, but there were still things that were visible to me from the long ago past. Now Davidson’s quaint little post office where Grandma walked to pick up her mail (I still remember the combination of her long gone box, and when I walked into the KUC here on campus I had quite a little shock, seeing the mailboxes of my childhood in use on a college campus of my adulthood) has been replaced by the glass and chrome type of buildings that are sprouting up everywhere. The campus is still there, and looks as beautiful and beckoning as I remember it.

The interstate exit to Davidson, North Carolina used to be regularly marked with paw prints (giant, red paw prints) left by the mascot for Davidson College, the Wildcat. As a child, I found these exciting to see; the thought that a giant wildcat had traveled the interstate was a compelling one. The town where I grew up seemed to have little in it at the time, except for the private college with the same name as the town: Davidson. Two traffic lights, two gas stations (one of them my grandmother referred to as “the Esso station” until her dying day) and a college. And, of course, there were the paths.

My grandmother lived in a big, two story house about a block away from the college. I spent summers there as a child, and when I grew older – junior high school age or so – my father, my younger sister and I moved in with her. For some time, Grandma took in roomers, always students from the school. One of the boys who stayed there, Andy, had a job as the college mascot. The cat who left the tracks was cooling his paws in Grandma’s house. If I had been a little younger and a little less interested in my own tracks, I would have been beside myself with excitement.

There is only one road that travels through the middle of town. With a stroke of originality, the planners of the town determined it should be called Main Street, and Grandma’s house sits right on it. One block from the campus, two blocks from the old post office (now three, since a new building for all the new mailboxes and accompanying new residents has been built) and only one small block away from Greek Row. While some people might fondly reflect on hearing the sounds of nature outside their bedroom window during their formative years, I recall with equal fondness hearing the Sigma Phi Epsilons having a keg party complete with hot tub in the stark freezing winter. In front of Grandma’s house is a “new” section of sidewalk. It was laid down when I was 18 and a newlywed, home recuperating from appendicitis while my then-husband was away in basic training with the Army. My first foray out after surgery consisted of sitting on the front step leading to the fresh, new sidewalk and writing my initials and the date, October 21st, 1985, into the wet cement. Later that day, my sister and her hooligan friends (Grandma disliked each and all of them, as she felt they were destined for trouble, according to her) left their marks along with mine. When approaching Grandma’s house now, one does so accompanied by the name of a boy who is forever 24 due to an untimely alcohol related death, the initials of the first young man I ever knew to come out of the closet and a woman recently diagnosed with cancer. Grandma may have been right about the trouble after all.

The college is an old one – the buildings are the type of old brick that seem to attract ivy until the ivy seems stronger even than the brick itself. The college is on 450 acres, and that much land spawns many sidewalks and paths. The sidewalks were old when I lived there – cracked, pitted and downright impossible to roller-skate over. But roller-skate I did, with Grandma right behind me. Later, as I grew older, and more mobile, I graduated to a bike, and (seemingly) left Grandma behind. More years passed, and the bike was replaced by a stroller, complete with infant and Grandma with me again. Slower, but still she stayed with me. I walked, skated and biked over the entire college as a kid. I doubt that there was an area left unmarked by my wheels or feet. I hung out in the Commons, used the pay phones when I was grounded from my home phone, and ran on the cross country trails. This was before the advent of the Walkman, so I listened to my thoughts, rather than music.

The college is bordered by enormous trees and in the fall my friends and I would leave our school bus early so we could walk the remainder of the way home and ruin the neat piles of leaves by the roadside that covered the sidewalks. My friends might have gotten some excitement from the desecration of the work of others, but I enjoyed the whispery sound of the leaves scattering in front and around me. The colors of the leaves were incredible, too, so bright and brilliant that every tree I see showing its colors in the fall makes me think of those trees in Davidson, 20 years ago. Showering leaves down upon us juvenile delinquents running up the sidewalk was not the only job for the trees; when they were green and full of springtime, they were perfect for climbing and contemplating my obligatory teen angst.

The paths of the college campus – sidewalks, dirt, or through the particularly climbable branches of a tree – circuitously carried me through my failed high school career, into a marriage, birth of a child and on through my growth into who I am becoming each day. As a child, spending so much time on a beautiful college campus, I never doubted I would attend a university and excel. It went without saying. Suddenly, I was 16, in love with a very bad guy, and my college hopes indeed went without saying, they said not a word to me as I left them behind in favor of his desires and needs, then the needs of my child. An early marriage, dropping out of high school and within a few years, a child, and the visions I had of myself as a dorm dwelling college student disappeared. While it could be argued that living in a dorm is not a dream for anyone, but truly a nightmare in horror (where else would one need to wear shoes in the shower?) it signified something more to me: independence and the capability to care for myself without the interference or assistance of another. Or, to put it another way: college is learning to do. Do what? Anything. I had envisioned myself in the high rooms of a dorm, studying, reading all the books in the library, walking all over the campus as I had as a child, finally belonging in the environment that I had spent years living around, but not in.

Davidson College was a great place to grow up.

Non-basketball: Davidson profiled for school policy

Not sure what to make of this from the above named blog:

FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for March 2006: Davidson College.

Attention, theater majors at Davidson: you’d better think twice before putting on a production of Guys and Dolls or Funny Girl. That’s because Davidson’s Sexual Harassment Policy prohibits the use of “patronizing remarks” such as “referring to an adult as ‘girl,’ ‘boy,’ ‘hunk,’ ‘doll,’ ‘honey,’” or “sweetie.”

I also hope that Davidson students are prepared for four years of romantic solitude, since that same policy prohibits “comments or inquiries about dating.” Good luck finding a date without making a comment or inquiry about dating...

Click here for entire article.

McKillop to N.C. State?

Could it happen? The idea is being kicked around.

Dragging On
The search for a new head coach to replace Herb Sendek at North Carolina State is dragging on thanks to several big names turning down the job. Two guys familiar with the area that would make great choices:
Bob McKillop, Davidson: McKillop has won a ton of games at Davidson. Last season, he led the Wildcats to a perfect 16-0 conference record and a trip to the NCAA Tournament where they played second-seeded Ohio State tough before falling by eight. McKillop has done amazing things at a school with very high academic standards and to my knowledge is the only Division I coach in the country whose website bio includes the use of the word "supposition". Needless to say, he would probably get a little more academic leeway in Raleigh.
Gregg Marshall, Winthrop: blah, blah, blah.......

All's quiet on Wolfpack front for now
Bob McKillop, Davidson
RECORD: 262-202 in 16 seasons at Davidson.
WHY HIM?: Has won plenty in the Southern Conference and has recruited athletes with excellent character and academic ability.
WHY NOT?: Some big-name recruits won't be familiar with him, so that would cause problems for McKillop initially in this job.

N.C. State isn't doing this hiring thing right
"There are lots of reasons lots of coaches would love to have this job, but State's blind lust for a famous coach leads us to believe they'd hire Paris Hilton before calling Gregg Marshall or Bob McKillop."

Rejected by Lavin?
"I think a reasonable hire for NC State would be Bob McKillop. Being at a bigger stage he would be able to get even more talented recruits and leverage his domestic and international connections..."

Wolfpack Back At Square One
"I’ve lost a lot of confidence in the State administration…..one of the most respected coaches in the business is sitting right here in NC….Bob McKillop at Davidson would have the State program up and howling in two years….he will play anyone, anywhere, at any time…..and he did that at Davidson without any admissions preferential treatment (if the player can’t meet the normal academic requirements of a student at Davidson, he doesn’t get in)….look at the intensity his teams play with, and how they play against the Duke, Carolina, etc type teams……"

*************

This article doesn't mention McKillop, but it does detail the coaching search for the Wolfpack:
Everyone else has withdrawn ... why not me?