Steph Curry is rooting for NC State due to love for Cinderellas and a family connection

Every March, Steph Curry remembers.

And sometimes, during March Madness, he has a strong sense of déjà vu.

Such is the case this year, Curry said Friday night, as he watches N.C. State’s unlikely run in the NCAA Tournament — one that he is particularly fond of because of a family connection he has with the current N.C. State team.

Much like the 2008 Davidson team that saw Curry emerge as a national star while leading the Wildcats to the Elite Eight and within an eyelash of the Final Four, the Wolfpack have won three consecutive games as a double-digit seed to make it to the Elite Eight of the 2024 version of March Madness.

Curry was a little busy Friday night and couldn’t watch the N.C. State game live. He scored a solid but unspectacular 23 points as Golden State took care of the Charlotte Hornets, 115-97, before a sold-out crowd of 19,487 fans at the Spectrum Center, many of whom were wearing Curry’s No. 30 jersey. The Warriors-Hornets game Friday and N.C. State’s 67-58 win over Marquette in Dallas were played simultaneously.

But Curry found out the result quickly after the NBA game and talked about the kinship between 2008 Davidson and 2024 N.C. State afterward.

“I mean, it’s obviously different with us coming from the Southern Conference and them in the ACC,” Curry began. “But the seeding? We were a 10 seed and they were an 11 seed. It’s the Cinderella, unlikely run kind of vibes.”

As for his own memories of Davidson’s three NCAA Tournament wins in 2008, two of which came in Raleigh, the 36-year-old Curry said: “I think about it all the time. ... It just means I’m getting old and that was now 16 years ago, which is nuts. But I still get some goose bumps every once in a while.”

And as for the Wolfpack’s run, Curry said it was good for college basketball.

“You need a story like that every year because it keeps the energy up and the surprise of who’s gonna make it to the Final Four,” Curry said. N.C. State will face familiar ACC foe Duke on Sunday at 5:05 p.m. in Dallas (CBS) for a Final Four berth.

Curry has a couple of connections to the Wolfpack, too, as does his family. After first answering a question about March Madness noting that “my bracket is trash,” Curry quickly pivoted to family matters.

“Shout-out to my cousin Steve Snell, who’s coaching for N.C. State (as an assistant coach who is the director of basketball operations),” Curry said. “And his son, Jordan, is on the team. ... So I have some family in the tournament, and I’m rooting for them for sure.”

Curry was in a good mood Friday night not just because of N.C. State’s win. In one of the NBA’s more peculiar streaks, the Warriors had lost four straight games in Charlotte over the past several years. And in their most recent appearance, in October 2022, Curry had bemoaned the fact he tried to play “hero ball” at the end of regulation, missing a contested 3-pointer that forced overtime, which Charlotte won.

So Golden State’s 18-point win over Charlotte (18-55) Friday night was not one Curry took for granted, particularly since the Warriors (39-34) are in a dogfight for playoff positioning in the Western Conference.

“It’s nice to actually win here,” Curry said. “It’s been a minute since we did that.”

The game had one notable confrontation, between Golden State’s Draymond Green and Charlotte’s Grant Williams. The two have a history of trash talk and physicality, and at one point they looked like they were in a wrestling match on a play where Green was ultimately called for a foul. Warriors coach Steve Kerr challenged the call but to no avail.

“The Draymond-Grant Williams thing was nothing and they just got tangled up,” Kerr said in response to a question I asked him about the incident later. “And you know, if it wasn’t Draymond, you wouldn’t even be asking me that. So — not a big deal.”

Kerr wasn’t asked, however, about another play in which it appeared Green may have tried to kick Williams.

Curry, of course, steered clear of controversy and was careful answering the standard question he gets every year when he makes his once-a-season pilgrimage to Charlotte to play a game with the Warriors:

Would he like to come back and be a Hornet some day, in a place where his father Dell starred and is now the TV analyst and his brother Seth now plays (although he didn’t suit up Friday due to an ankle injury)?

“I have thoughts all the time,” said Curry, who grew up in Charlotte and played at Charlotte Christian before Davidson. “But no, I want to stay in the Bay, and that’s something I’ve talked about. There’s a curiosity of what it would be like to play here, for sure. I feel like I ask Seth a lot of questions about what it’s like to be back here just because you’re so familiar with the city and with the history of the organization.”

Curry said it remained special to play in Charlotte, particularly because he may not get the chance to do it that often.

“I probably can count on one hand how many times I get to come back,” he said.

And, in the meantime, he will root for the Wolfpack against Duke on Sunday.