Davidson forced to drop LU from basketball schedule

By Chris Lang
Sports writer
Published: August 20, 2008

Curry versus Curry will have to wait.
Liberty and Davidson had tentatively scheduled a game for November in which the two brothers — Flames freshman Seth and Wildcats junior Stephen — would face off on the floor. But Davidson’s run to last year’s Elite Eight put the Wildcats in the national spotlight, and the Preseason NIT wanted Davidson in its field.
LU coach Ritchie McKay and Davidson coach Bob McKillop still worked feverishly to find a date, and they had settled on one in early December. But if Liberty and Davidson met, the Wildcats would have to drop Charlotte from their schedule. Those teams have met for 29 consecutive seasons, and the administrations at both schools wanted to ensure the local rivals made it an even 30.
So Liberty was the odd school out.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out,” McKay said. “I have the utmost respect for Bob McKillop and I don’t think there was any lack of integrity in the process. It was just one of those scheduling deals.”
Liberty and Davidson are still trying to work out a deal for the 2009-10 season, when the elder Curry would be a senior, provided he doesn’t bolt to the NBA. Davidson dropping off the 2008-09 schedule actually proved beneficial for Liberty, which in a scramble to fill the opening stumbled into a home-and-home series with Clemson.
The Flames will play Clemson Dec. 7 at Littlejohn Coliseum, and the Tigers will return the trip in 2009-10, marking the first time an ACC opponent has ever visited Lynchburg. (Virginia Tech has been here five times, but never as an ACC member. Tech was in the Atlantic 10 when it last visited LU in 1998-99.)
New Flames assistant coach Kyle Getter worked with Clemson coach Oliver Purnell when the two were at Dayton.
“I’ve been on the other end of that at Oregon State and New Mexico,” McKay said. “We rarely went to other arenas because we could afford to buy so many home games. For coach Purnell and his staff to have the confidence in his own team to (travel to Liberty) and also the understanding of our level and our pursuit of being a nationally renowned program, we get a step closer to it just by having an ACC team on our campus.”
The Clemson game is one of two scheduling oddities for the Flames, who will face the Tigers a day after playing a Big South home game against Gardner-Webb. The other oddity is the conference opener, which will be Nov. 18 when Liberty travels to UNC Asheville.
When reached Wednesday, Big South commissioner Kyle Kallander said he could not comment on why the two were meeting so early in the conference season.
After the UNCA game, Liberty will travel to Charlottesville to meet Virginia Nov. 25. On Thanksgiving weekend, LU will host the Liberty Thanksgiving Tournament, a four-team event featuring the Flames, William & Mary, South Carolina State and Division II Coker College. Liberty will open with Coker Nov. 28 and assuming it wins, will meet the winner of the other game the next night.
“I thought it was healthy for our program to host a tournament,” McKay said. “If it goes well, maybe you can keep it going for a couple, three years. We wanted to try it. Our hope was to get two home games from it. Whether it will continue or not (in the future), I’m not sure.”
George Mason will visit the Vines Center Dec. 1 in the back end of a home-and-home deal that began last season in Fairfax. Liberty will participate in the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic from Dec. 17-23. The event begins on campus sites, and Liberty will play DePaul (Dec. 17) and Saint Louis (Dec. 19) on the road before meeting Southern University Dec. 22 at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
LU will face either Northern Colorado or USC Upstate the next day in Vegas. LU returns home for a tune-up against Cincinnati Christian Dec. 28 before resuming Big South play at Winthrop Jan. 3.
The Big South tournament will be held March 3-7, beginning with quarterfinal games at campus sites. The championship game, televised by ESPN2, has moved from a late-morning tip time to 4 p.m.