Davis leads alma mater to D-III Final Four
After 11 years as an assistant at three Patriot League schools, Bethesda native Nathan Davis was positioning himself for his first Division I head coaching job. But that was before his alma mater came calling.
Eleven months later, Davis has guided Randolph-Macon to the NCAA Division III Final Four. On Friday night in Salem, Va., Randolph-Macon (26-6) plays Wisconsin-Stevens Point (27-4) for a berth in Saturday’s championship game.
Named the South Region coach of the year Tuesday, Davis, a former guard at Walter Johnson High, took his rookie year success in stride.
“I’m not really surprised. This school has always had a strong basketball tradition,” Davis said. “I inherited a good team. We have great kids, and they wanted to become as good as they could be.”
Davis was an instant success. The first time the Yellow Jackets took the court, he guided them to a stunning exhibition win over American University, a Division I school. A 13-0 start to the regular season followed as Randolph-Macon earned a No. 1 ranking for the first time in seven years.
Academics is the top priority at the private liberal arts school 15 miles north of Richmond. But basketball ranks a close second. The tradition is a continuing theme with Davis, a 1997 graduate. As a 6-foot-4 guard, he captained the Yellow Jackets in his junior and senior seasons, playing for the winningest coach in school history, Hal Nunnally.
On the day Davis was introduced to the media, he sat next to an unoccupied chair, honoring his former coach, who died in 2004.
“I happened to play for Hal Nunnally, and he’s always around,” Davis told reporters that day. “I wanted to make sure he had a place to sit.”
Even though it’s Division III, taking over at Randolph-Macon comes with pressure. Davis is just the school’s fourth coach since 1956. The records of the previous coaches demonstrate the tradition of excellence. Paul Webb was 315-158 before moving on to Old Dominion in 1975. Nunnally went 431-232 in 24 seasons. Davis’ predecessor, Mike Rhoades (197-76), coached 10 years before taking an assistant job at nearby Virginia Commonwealth.
Despite all those wins, however, postseason success has been hard to come by. Randolph-Macon had been to the finals just once in 1977, when the team competed in Division II. The school shifted to D-III in 1990.
Davis stuck with Rhoades’ system, using pressure man-to-man defense and motion offense and rotating 11 players.
Three of his top players are from the D.C. area. Danny Jones (Herndon), a 6-6 junior sixth man, leads the team in scoring (13.1 ppg). Eric Pugh (Blake), a 6-0 junior, scores 10.7 points a game, while Calvin Croskey (Osbourn Park), a 6-0 sophomore, averages 8.5.
“Coach Davis is pretty much doing the things Coach Rhoades did, same philosophies,” Jones said. “I just think we’re peaking right now.”
Pugh was instrumental in the Yellow Jackets’ 73-65 victory over Franklin & Marshall in the region final, the fourth win of the playoff run. After the Yellow Jackets went eight minutes without a field goal, Pugh (23 points) hit three 3-pointers in the final 6:50 of the first half. Down the stretch he hit a big 3-pointer, then a pair of free throws that iced it.
“We’re excited. We have a lot of confidence right now,” Pugh said.
