March Madness games of the decade: Davidson-Georgetown at No. 7

He was still baby-faced and somewhat unknown beyond college basketball circles, just Dell Curry's kid, you know, the big scorer at that small school in North Carolina. Then he hung 40 on Gonzaga in the first round of the 2008 NCAA tournament, and it's difficult to remain anonymous once that happens. Consequently, Stephen Curry entered his second-round game against Georgetown with much anticipation. When it was over, he was a star on his way to becoming an icon of the sport ... not to mention an NBA lottery pick.

Coming in at No. 7 on the list of the "10 Best NCAA March Madness games from this decade" is ...

Davidson vs. Georgetown (2008)

One win.

That's usually all the low-seeded underdogs get.

One win, at best.

So when Stephen Curry scored 40 to lead 10th-seeded Davidson past seventh-seeded Gonzaga in the first round of the 2008 NCAA tournament, most reasonable humans (i.e., pretty much everybody except Davidson fans) discounted it as nothing more than one non-BCS school beating another non-BCS school, and they started explaining how no Southern Conference guard could do that to Georgetown. The Hoyas were the Big East champions, after all, a team led by future pros Roy Hibbert and DaJuan Summers. They entered with a 28-5 record. They were a No. 2 seed. They were ranked eighth nationally. They had defense that ranked sixth in terms of efficiency.

Stephen Curry took over late to sink Georgetown. (Getty Images)

Predictably, Georgetown jumped to a 38-27 halftime lead.

That ballooned to 46-29 with less than 18 minutes to play.

"I forget what timeout it was, but we were down 16 and Coach [Bob McKillop] is asking us if we're having fun," Davidson guard Jason Richards would later tell reporters. "We got to smiling a little bit ... and this kid started getting on fire again, like he did the other day, and when that happens it's tough to stop him."

That kid was Stephen Curry, of course.

The sophomore sank a 3-pointer that cut the lead to 48-36, then added a free throw (48-37). With a little more than nine minutes remaining, he hit another 3-pointer (50-46), then made two free throws (54-52), hit another 3-pointer (57-55), and converted a 3-point play to push the Wildcats to a 60-58 lead with 4:40 remaining. Next, a layup (62-60, Davidson), then another 3-pointer (65-60, Davidson). Then Curry made five free throws in the final 23 seconds, and the Wildcats advanced to the Sweet 16 with a 74-70 win.

Curry finished with 30 points.

Twenty-five of those points came in the final 15 minutes.

"He had guys all over him," Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "And the ball was going in."

It was more of the same five days later when Curry got 33 points to push Davidson past Wisconsin and into the Elite Eight. The Wildcats next ran into the top-seeded (and eventual national champion) Kansas Jayhawks, and Curry missed 16 of the 25 shots he attempted in a 59-57 loss. But by then, his legacy was already cemented, his story already written. Forever and always, Stephen Curry will be known as one of the stars of college basketball's season-closing tournament, his explosion against Georgetown serving as the ultimate highlight reel.