The hot hand of Troy Daniels lifts VCU over St. Francis (Pa.)

Jim Swing
Sports Editor
Commonwealth Times’ Sports Twitter

The play wasn’t even designed for Troy Daniels. Looking back, maybe it should’ve been. But instead, he was the third option. Teams regularly feed the hot hand when they need critical points. However, this play wasn’t drawn up with Daniels’ name on it.

But that didn’t matter. In the end his number was called, and Daniels answered as he did all night.

With 43 seconds remaining, VCU had the ball in desperate need of a basket to put the nail in the coffin of what had once been a 16-point lead in the second half. The ball touched the hands of nearly every Ram on the floor as the shot clock wasted away.

Finally, it found Daniels in the corner, wide-open for a deep bomb that sunk through the net with 8.1 seconds remaining and nearly brought the Siegel Center down with it. The beaming red shot-clock light lit up around the backboard, but it wasn’t as bright as the faces of 7,617 witnessing VCU’s 63-57 season-opening victory over St. Francis (Pa.).

“I was fortunate to get the shot,” said Daniels, who had 22 points and six rebounds. “People always dream of getting shots like that, so I had a chance to step up and hit it.”

It was his fifth 3-pointer of the night, and just like the four previous ones, Daniels remained emotionless. His face was as cold-blooded as the shots he had been burying all night long. And even when the shots didn’t fall, Daniels remained calm, cool, collected and kept firing as if he didn’t have a rhyme or reason.

“I definitely have confidence,” Daniels said. “You miss a couple threes or twos or a bad play, you just have to go to the next play. So I give all the credit to my coaches and my teammates keeping me prepared for that.”

Daniels was dangerous in nearly every aspect. When he wasn’t posted on the wing looking for his next crowd-pleaser, he was hustling after a loose ball or fighting for a bobbled rebound.

His 6-foot-4-inch, 200-pound stature isn’t built to be wrestling in the paint for rebounds, but Daniels did it anyway. And despite a team-leading effort in Friday night’s game, VCU head coach Shaka Smart knows Daniels can elevate his game to an even greater level.

“He did help us out on rebounding. Six rebounds is great,” Smart said. “But he can be much, much better.”

In his first two years at VCU, Daniels averaged only 5.3 minutes per game. The limited time he saw on the floor was so minuscule it was difficult to decipher what kind of talent Daniels had waiting in the chamber.

“I’m hard on him because I know how good he can be,” Smart said. “But if you think about it, for him to get 22 and six after really not playing much his first two years, that’s a positive step forward. I mean, that’s really good.”

If VCU ever needed a performance like it got out of Daniels, it was tonight, when senior leader Bradford Burgess shot an egregious 0-for-12 from the floor.

“It just shows how other guys can effect the game and step up,” Burgess said.

After Daniels hit four 3-pointers in VCU’s win over VMI last year, his teammates ranted and raved about his sharpshooting in practice. Former Ram Brandon Rozzell said Daniels would drill long-range shots in the faces of he and his fellow seniors behind closed doors. And now, he’s brought it out in public.

“In my first two years, basically I was just playing in practice and just basically hitting shots in practice,” Daniels said. “And to transfer it over to a game was a problem, but I pretty much picked it up this year.”