Lose 106-79, as VCU did last Friday at Dayton, and brace for speculation about defensive commitment and your overall plan in place. The Rams allowed 17 3-pointers. Dayton shot 63 percent. The Flyers dropped 66 on VCU in the opening half.
Was that a once-a-decade, flushable fluke? Or did the Flyers expose a fragile Rams spine that had been flexible in several games before they gave up 106?
Based on Wednesday night’s 67-52 loss to Richmond at the Siegel Center, the Rams brought some self-doubt on that trip to Dayton, got blasted, and need some time to compose and reset.
Allow 106 Friday, score 52 Wednesday. How much did Friday bleed into Wednesday?
“I would say a lot,” said VCU guard Jonathan Williams. “We were playing, like, not to lose, instead of just trying to go out there and play our game and win. Everybody was worrying about not letting it happen again.
“But, I mean, (the Spiders) played great. They ran the offense well. They guarded us well. ... You can’t just blame it all on Friday.”
The Rams aren’t good enough on offense to make so many defensive mistakes and get away with it. Richmond made a few tough shots, but not many. The Spiders took care of the ball and ran an offense that led to welcome opportunity, and then they scored in transition. UR shot 54 percent and outrebounded VCU by 10.
“Our lack of production on the offensive end, I thought we had some great shots and early in the game we had some really open 3s that we’ve been making all year ... it affected the other end of the court,” Rams coach Mike Rhoades said. “We’ve had enough struggles on the defensive end of the court. It just magnified today with our lack of production on offense.”
VCU (11-8, 3-3 A-10) was in chase mode from the start.
The Rams didn’t come close to generating the series of defensive stops that would have been required to put the brakes on UR (5-13, 3-3 A-10), which worked the shot clock through the second half, keeping the score down.
VCU had won 19 of the last 24 meetings and six straight.
“Nobody had us (winning) this game,” Richmond freshman guard Jacob Gilyard said.
The Spiders scored “only” 34 in the first half, but they got pretty much what they wanted on offense: fast-break hoops, power moves by Grant Golden (17 points), backdoor cuts and clear 3-point opportunities.
More than VCU defense, UR’s first-half point total was limited by the six turnovers it committed and a handful of missed open shots.
The Rams’ clear advantage coming in was the in-the-lane prowess of 6-foot-7 Justin Tillman, who was averaging 18.2 points and shooting 56.3 percent. He was how VCU could have stayed in a shootout.
VCU didn’t play patiently or purposefully enough to get Tillman more than six first-half shots and trailed 34-27 at the break. The Rams took jumpers, even when Tillman, who never got on track, had established interior scoring position.
This game started just as Richmond would have wished. The Spiders took a 3-0 lead on a Khwan Fore corner shot and did not trail the rest of the way. That famously rowdy crowd at the Siegel Center? Wasn’t much noise.
“We’ve just got to keep grinding and figure it out,” said Rhoades.