Davidson coach Matt McKillop sees talent throughout his roster. More importantly, he sees options.

Last season, three Wildcats averaged at least 13.5 points,  but the team had only one other player notch more than 5.1 points a game. And given the roster makeup, it wasn’t a huge surprise.

“With youth and with a lack of veterans, it usually means less depth,” McKillop said. “Last year, we had to rely on Reed Bailey and Connor Kochera so much. The year before, we had to rely on Grant Huffman entirely. We have really good freshmen and we have really good returners, and now we have really good experienced guys who have done it at the college level and all of them are very capable.”

Davidson looked to both power conferences and traditional one-bid leagues to find ideal, veteran fits, and the Wildcats believe they found two possibilities going both of those routes.

Junior guard Sam Brown was an all-Ivy League second team pick last season at Penn, where he averaged 13.9 points. Josh Scovens earned second team all-conference plaudits in the Patriot League, where the 6-foot-6 wing averaged 15.2 points a year after winning rookie of the year honors in the 10-school circuit.

Also new to the fold is forward JQ Roberts, who played in 21 games for a Vanderbilt team that reached the NCAA tournament. McKillop belatedly also gets to coach guard Parker Friedrichsen, who averaged 3.2 points at Wake Forest last season and logged 16.4 minutes per game in two seasons with the Demon Deacons.

“What we’ve seen, he’s the player we believed he could be when we recruited him [out of high school], and we recruited him heavily,” McKillop said. “I think in the back of his mind, there was always a [thought] Davidson could have been the right place. Maybe. Maybe it’s what I wanted him to have thought. I think he’s learned pretty quickly ‘Maybe I should have come here in the first place.’”

And while he’s technically a returnee, Davidson had to do without senior forward Sean Logan for the entirety of Atlantic 10 play a year ago after he suffered a torn ACL. Logan has a rare perspective; he’s one of four Atlantic 10 players who is entering at least his fourth season and hasn’t transferred once.

“We just have more experience and we’ve all seen things and we don’t care about anything else other than winning,” Logan said.

The Wildcats could be in line to do more of it thanks to its influx of depth.

“I think they fit great,” McKillop said. “We have not been able to get older. Davidson does not offer graduate school, so there was this fifth-year eligibility that existed and we couldn’t find a way to take advantage of it like many other teams have. And we always wanted to be older and now we feel like we are.”
 

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A look at the Wildcats

Coach: Matt McKillop, fourth season at Davidson, 48-49 with the Wildcats and overall.

Last year: Davidson made it mid-February with a 15-9 overall record and a place in the middle of the Atlantic 10 standings, but a rigorous closing stretch saw the Wildcats drop six of their last seven league games before splitting two contests in the conference championship. The final result was a 17-16 record and a 6-12 mark in the A-10.

They’ll miss: A First Team All-Conference forward, which is no small thing. Reed Bailey averaged team highs in points (18.8), rebounds (6.1) and assists (3.8) for the year, while also swatting a team-best 25 shots. He was also named the Atlantic 10’s most improved player.
Two other double-digit scorers also departed: Connor Kochera (14.7 ppg) and Bobby Durkin (13.5 ppg).

Impact returners: In addition to the on-the-mend Sean Logan, Davidson brings back last year’s four primary reserves from the rotation.
A strong candidate for a breakout season is Latvian sophomore Roberts Blums, who averaged 4.3 points in 15.5 minutes last season. McKillop gushed about his coachability and eagerness to improve, and it’s clear part of last year’s adjustment was about figuring out what Davidson’s coaches value and then fully implementing it into his game.

“You can make the argument Roberts Blums has been the most consistent player in our gym for the last month,” McKillop said. “His mentality, his attitude, his understanding of the way we play and the American style of play compared to what he was used to, all of his time and effort is showing itself right now.”

Another name to keep an eye on: Sophomore forward Manie Joses (2.6 ppg, 1.8 rpg), who could take a step once he’s fully reintegrated into the rotation after offseason hip surgery.

Newcomers of note: The transfers will understandably draw attention, but Davidson is eager to see what its three-man freshman class can do as well.
Guard RJ Greer knows a few things about the Atlantic 10; Ricardo Greer, his father, is the associate head coach at Dayton. The Wildcats also picked up 6-foot-6, 200-pound wing Devin Brown out of Ohio, and 7-footer Ian Platteew, the 2025 U18 Eurobasket MVP from Spain.
And while he’s technically not a newcomer, Nick Coval comes off a planned redshirt year and will bolster the backcourt. McKillop said there were times last season he was tempted to scrap the sit-out plan, and it’s clear the Pennsylvania native could help Davidson plenty this year.

Reasons to be optimistic: The prospect of getting a full season out of Logan has to be one of them.

The senior played in only 11 games before suffering his season-ending knee injury last fall, but Logan’s track record is long enough to know what sort of difference he can be once he’s settled back in. He blocked 58 shots for Davidson two seasons ago, and while it’s possible his workload will be monitored early, McKillop is eager to have him back on the court.

“It’s going to be a progression, and we haven’t gotten into the step by step, minute by minute details. …,” McKillop said. “As things continue to progress on the path we believe they will, he’ll be ready to go for our first game. Doesn’t mean he’s going to be the best shot-blocker in the A-10 in November, but I know he’s capable of getting there soon.”

X factor: It might just be senior Joe Hurlburt, who averaged just 1.2 points in 28 games last season after transferring from Colorado.
“You go into the offseason and say ‘Let’s see what we can get out of him,’ and all the sudden he’s performing as well as anybody on the court, it shows we have the right guys in our program,” McKillop said. “It shows we have the environment that’s going to help them develop. It also shows we’re going to have a lot of different options.”

Circle the date: NCAA tournament regular Saint Mary’s makes the trip to North Carolina on Dec. 7 to return a game from two seasons ago. There’s also a Dec. 22 game at Kansas to provide an imposing test a little more than a week before the start of Atlantic 10 play. 

Bottom line: Davidson has struggled at the end of back-to-back seasons. With a depth created by some shrewd transfer pickups, the maturation of last year’s freshmen and a healthy Logan, the Wildcats are better equipped to withstand the rigors of a five-month college season than they’ve been of late.

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