Stephen Curry (photo. Davidson)

*Reprinted from Dime #45, on sale now*

This is the third annual edition of Dime’s NCAA Player’s Ball, where we hand over the task of predicting and prognosticating to the real experts; the best college ballplayers in America. Today, Davidson junior guard Stephen Curry tells you why his team wasn’t a one-hit wonder.

DAVIDSON IS GOING TO SHOCK THE WORLD … AGAIN

“For me personally, I’ve got a big change ahead of me moving to the point guard position. That’s going to be a big change for our offense. I’m going to be bringing the ball down the court and setting up guys off the ball. I’m studying our point guard from last year, Jason Richards, and the things that he did to be successful. I’m trying to adapt that to my game and to what Coach (Bob) McKillop expects from us this year.

“I went to Chris Paul’s camp and got some one-on-one time with him, just working on controlling the tempo of the game, as he does so well in all aspects. I learned a lot from Chris. LeBron got everyone together after we were done playing and basically told us why he’s such a great player: because he competes every play, he plays 100 percent on every play. He doesn’t play to his competition’s level. He’s basically playing against himself every time he goes out.

“As a team, it’s going to be a lot tougher to go 20-0 in conference this year — we have to figure out where our weaknesses are early and hopefully improve on those quickly, because when we get to conference everyone’s going to give us their best shot. We’ve pretty much dominated the conference since I’ve been in school, and historically we’ve been at the top. We’re going to have a big bulls-eye on our back in and out of conference. What LeBron says is going to have to come out more because anyone can beat you on any night.

“Every time we play, Coach McKillop has three objectives — to get better, to play to win, and to have fun. We have a great opportunity to be successful on the national stage and be a great team again, we just have to figure out how to do it now.”

(Curry dropped 33 points, nine assists and four steals in #21 Davidson’s win over the James Madison last night. He’s projected as a Top-10 pick in next year’s NBA Draft by NBADraft.net, and a Top-20 pick by DraftExpress.com.)

‘08-09 NCAA Player’s Ball
1. Memphis isn’t dead