Stephen Curry.

Most of the country can’t pronounce the name, yet they are still enamored with the frail kid who looks so young he couldn’t get into an R-rated movie.

He is the kind of character you can only find in a novel. He has the smile of a 12-year old and the competitive drive of Kobe Bryant. He scores with panache, but plays with humility. His exuberance is infectious, yet so is his poise.

And that shot. Oh, that glorious shot.

The son of former NBA sharpshooter Dell Curry possesses a stroke that’s nearly perfect. Squared shoulders, tumbling rotation, and a high arch, it is the real-life version of a basketball camp lecture on shooting.

But the main reason people love Stephen Curry is because of his courage. He’s officially listed at 185 pounds, but his heart must account for at least 25 of them.

During Davidson’s improbable run through the NCAA Tournament, Curry has given the nation a chance to see what those of us who follow the sport deeply already knew: He is one of the finest players in college basketball.

The Wildcats aren’t a one-man show. Point guard Jason Richards is a serious talent in his own right. He leads the country in assists per game and last year he was second nationally. And Andrew Lovedale and Boris Meno can play big.
But Curry makes it all go. His point totals are almost silly, yet his movement off the ball, his willingness to make the extra pass, and his confidence are just as valuable to the team as his scoring ability is. Sure he’s averaging 34.3 points a game in the tourney, but he’s also done more than fire the slingshot in leading Davidson past three Goliaths. He’s given the rest of his team a reason to believe they can do anything. And that can’t be measured statistically.

His excellence has been so overwhelming that the talk about his future isn’t strictly about who Davidson is playing next. Now people want to know if he’s going to follow his father’s footsteps into the NBA.

At 6-foot-2, he’d be an undersized 2-guard at the next level. He has proven that he can get his shot off against elite athletes. He has proven that can handle the ball under pressure and find the open man. He is certainly skilled enough offensively to compete against the best of the best. Whether he will get the opportunity is a fate that NBA scouts will decide.

The NCAA Tournament has a way of making good college basketball players into celebrities. The tourney gave Bo Kimble a place to grieve and Joakim Noah a place to speak. It gave Miles Simon, Keith Smart, Pervis Ellison, and Rumeal Robinson a place in history. It gave Jay Williams a reason to feel invincible and it made Glenn Robinson a 68-million-dollar-man.

Now it has given Stephen Curry a place among them.

And it has given the rest of us moths a reason to correctly pronounce the name of the flame that's burning before us.