But the experience alone was something for the players from Colby to savor — “I remember their next game after us was Duke,” said Drew Cohen, the team’s starting center — and its mystique has only grown as the years have passed. At the time, none of the players could have known that Curry would go on to become the N.B.A.’s most valuable player.

“What this guy has become,” Cohen said, “is crazy.”

Lightly recruited out of high school, Curry was still largely known for being the son of the former N.B.A. player Dell Curry. He was not particularly imposing, either, with a slight build and a six-foot frame. But Mark Gaudet, a guard for Colby, kept telling his teammates, “This kid is going to be good.”

Dick Whitmore, who was then the coach at Colby, reinforced that message by showing his players film of Curry scoring 32 points in a 10-point loss to Michigan that month. Colby had opened its season against Babson College and Washington University, both fine programs. But Babson was not Michigan.

Nick Farrell, a guard who would be tasked with defending Curry for much of the game, recalled watching the film and thinking, “If this guy is torching Michigan, what’s he going to do to us?” Still, for Division III players from Maine, an escape to North Carolina in late November to face a Division I opponent was a thrill — at least until their plane landed.

“We get there, and it’s snowing,” said Artie Cutrone, a guard who was a sophomore at the time.

Whitmore, meanwhile, was trying to figure out how to contend with Davidson’s size. Colby had an outstanding shot blocker in Cohen but was otherwise undermanned in the frontcourt. Whitmore decided that he would have his perimeter players collapse and at least make life more difficult for Davidson’s post players. If Davidson was going to beat Colby by launching jumpers from the outside, so be it. But Whitmore, who retired from Colby in 2011, felt it would be more effective than letting Davidson feast on layups.