Kansas will have to deal with Stephen Curry to get to Final Four

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At halftime, the score was tied. Curry appeared to be shut down, but he wasn’t at all. He had 11 points, a couple of assists, a couple of steals. And he knew something — it was Wisconsin that was about to get frustrated. It has happened the whole tournament. Gonzaga had led Davidson at halftime; Curry had scored 30 second-half points to lead the comeback. Georgetown had Davidson down 17 at one point; Curry scored 25 points in the second half to lead the comeback.

Wisconsin scrambled and fought and cut the margin to three points. Curry made a ridiculous three-point jumper — if the defender is even 6 inches away, he cannot get his hands up in time to block Curry’s shot. The ball swished, giving Davidson a six-point lead.

And then he made the play.

Davidson’s Jason Richards stripped the ball away from Wisconsin’s Joe Krabbenhoft. And now there was a mad scramble — Davidson players were running down the court, and Wisconsin players were searching for Stephen Curry. He was standing in the corner, by himself. Richards — who leads the nation in assists, in large part because he knows how to find Curry — found Curry. He threw a bullet pass.

Curry caught it and was about to shoot his lightning quick shot. Nobody was around him. He could have gotten it off. He was looking at the basket. And then, instead of shooting the ball, he just stopped. He stood there for one beat, two beats, as if he was waiting for something.

He was waiting for something. On the third beat, Krabbenhoft — one of the best defensive players in the country — came running like a mad man, and he jumped, and he flew right by. Curry waited for him to go by, as if he were the wrong bus. Curry then calmly shot his beautiful jump shot, swished the three-pointer, gave Davidson a nine-point lead.

The game would never get any closer.

It was genius, that’s all. There’s no way to know how he saw Krabbenhoft coming, or how he could know that Krabbenhoft would just rush by like the wind. But he did. Later in the game, he hit a reverse layup that got NBA superstar LeBron James to jump to his feet. Later in the game, he had done so much that even a few heartbroken Wisconsin fans stood and applauded. How could they not?

And all the while, no doubt, there were coaches staring at their television Friday night and muttering, “How did I miss that?” There’s just no answer for that.

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To reach Joe Posnanski, call 816-234-4361 or send e-mail to jposnanski@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.