Bryant Barr was back on campus Friday morning, getting ready for an 11:45 test.

He would rather have been in San Antonio, getting ready for the Final Four, and came oh so close to getting that chance.

“It’s been a blur,” said Barr, Maine’s 2006 Mr. Basketball from Falmouth High School who helped in Davidson College’s improbable recent run to the NCAA Division I Elite Eight. “The past couple of weeks have just flown by.”

A North Carolina school of just 1,700 students, Davidson captured the imagination of college basketball fans nationwide as it advanced from the No. 10 seed in the Midwest Regional to just two points shy of the sport’s biggest stage before powerful Kansas edged the Wildcats 59-57 last Sunday.

Barr, a 6-foot-4 sophomore guard, made three 3-pointers and scored 11 points in the second half of that game to help Davidson challenge the Jayhawks until Jason Richards’ 3-point try bounced off the rim at the final buzzer.

“When you’re a kid playing in your driveway or in the cul de sac, you pretend you’re playing in the Final Four,” he said. “Now I’ve had the chance to play in the NCAA tournament with a shot to get to the Final Four.

“Coming from Maine and playing tournament games at the Augusta Civic Center or the Cumberland County Civic Center to getting to having this opportunity is definitely a dream come true.”

Barr averaged 5.3 points per game this season for Davidson, which finished 29-7 after winning the Southern Conference title to earn an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.

The Wildcats featured a veteran lineup and also benefited from a rigorous nonconference schedule that included games against two Final Four qualifiers, North Carolina and UCLA, along with Duke and North Carolina State.

Davidson lost to N.C. State by one point, North Carolina by four and Duke by six, and the Wildcats led UCLA by 18 early in the game before falling by 12.

“A lot of things opened up for us schedule-wise this year, and our early schedule really set us up for the rest of the season,” said Barr, who shot 42 percent from beyond the 3-point arc.

Led by Barr’s roommate, sophomore guard Stephen Curry, Davidson went unbeaten during the Southern Conference regular season, then won its postseason tournament to return to the NCAAs, where they lost in the first round to Maryland in 2007.

The Wildcats ousted No. 7 Gonzaga 82-76 in their opener, then stunned Big East Conference champion Georgetown 74-70 to reach the Sweet 16.

Curry, an All-American who averaged 35 points in those two games, was the talk of the nation but no surprise to Barr.

“We’ve seen Stephen play like that all year long,” said Barr. “He averaged 25 or 26 points a game, so we were not surprised at all by how he played in the tournament. He’s been a constant for us this year and last year.”

The scene then shifted from nearby Raleigh, N.C., to the vast expanse of Ford Field in Detroit – home of the NFL’s Lions and a far cry from the high school gyms of southern Maine.

“To go from Falmouth, Maine, where there were 400 or so people at our home games … when we had open practice at Ford Field there must have been 500 or 600 people just at the practice,” said Barr. “It was a different experience. The gym at Davidson holds 6,000, and we played at arenas with between 17,000 and 20,000 during the season, but then you walk onto Ford Field and you’re just wide-eyed, because the place was absolutely enormous.”

Barr played just eight minutes in Davidson’s first two NCAA tourney wins, but then found his shooting touch and with that came additional playing time.

He made two 3-pointers as Davidson whipped Big Ten champion Wisconsin 73-56, then built on that momentum against Big 12 champion Kansas. Barr made 4 of 6 field-goal tries overall, 3 of 4 from beyond the arc after intermission as the Jayhawks focused their defensive attention on Curry.

“Before we played Wisconsin, even though I hadn’t played many minutes in the tournament before then, I felt good in practice, my shot was falling, and then I hit my first two shots in the game and felt really comfortable out there,” said Barr.

“Obviously, the confidence I got from the Wisconsin game carried over to the Kansas game, but my first two shots in the first half weren’t even close. In the second half I turned it around, and after I hit my first shot, everything just felt a lot better out there.”

Two 3-pointers by Barr and a basket by Curry helped Davidson take a 51-47 lead with 8:52 left in the game, but Kansas outscored the Wildcats 12-2 to gain control before holding off one final Davidson challenge.

Barr plans to focus on defense this summer, believing that could lead to more playing time next winter.

In the meantime, he’ll watch the Final Four like millions of other fans – though armed with the unique experience of having played three of the participants.

“We didn’t play Memphis, which is the most athletic of the four teams, but all four teams have a great inside presence, they all like to get up and down the floor and they play good defense,” Barr said. “I could see a Memphis-North Carolina championship game, but you could play the Final Four four different ways and come out with different outcomes.”

Barr also can envision another deep run by Davidson next winter, particularly with Curry returning for his junior year.

“We had a team meeting [Wednesday] night, and at the end of it, coach [Bob McKillop] was telling us that he was leaving for the Final Four [Thursday],” Barr said.

“He got a few tears in his eyes, and then he said, ‘I’m not going to the Final Four next year without you.'”

eclark@bangordailynews.net

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