Coaches buzzing over ‘rivalry’

Every now and again VCU head coach Jeff Capel will give Richmond skipper Jerry Wainwright a buzz.

Sometimes it’s after a big win like, say, that one-point win over George Mason that gave the Rams the Colonial Athletic Association championship or, say, the stunner that Richmond pulled off against Kansas early last season.

But Capel said, “It usually happens after our game.”

The two third-year head coaches will see each other on the court in their third First Market Bank City Championship this Saturday at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.

They should have plenty to talk about on Sunday.

For starters, this game will be the tiebreaker for the two coaches.

Capel and the Rams rode a perfect night from the free-throw line by guard Emmanuel Mathis to win a 73-68 thriller in overtime two years ago at the Siegel Center. And last year, Waintwright’s Spiders snapped a two-game losing streak by pouring trifectas on the Rams in a 70-52 win at the Robins Center.

There’s a buzz on both campuses for what Wainwright calls a “watercooler game.”

“There’s fans on both sides,” Wainwright said. “Some people call it a rivalry game. You can call it whatever you want as long as it’s healthy. I look at it not necessarily as a rivalry, but as a game that’s good for Richmond.

“Anytime local teams can play it develops strong interest. The more games you can play like that the better.”

Still, with a conference championship, two NCAA tournament berths, and an ESPN Bracket Buster game between the two teams since the two coaches took over their respective programs in 2002, Capel knows people in the area are paying attention.

“It’s a rivalry because both teams have been really good,” Capel said. “I think it hopefully says a lot about both programs. The city of Richmond has great basketball. We’d all love to play in front of packed houses and have our games on local TV.”

They can also talk about how the WRIC-TV 8 will air the game on live television for the first time in the teams’ 58 meetings.

Some VCU officials wonder if the airing will take away from the number of people who actually make it out to the Siegel Center.

The game drew 5,695 to the Robins Center last year, and 5,705 to the Siegel Center the year before.

Both the Rams and the Spiders dodged the national cameras when they went down to previously No. 1 Wake Forest, but Capel is still curious about what effect the local cameras will have on his teams play.

“The one thing that it can do is that it can change your guys,” said Capel. “TV does some interesting things to a lot of people.”

Capel, who was concerned earlier this season about how the hype around his team would affect their play, has already done some lineup tweaking this season, benching sophomore forward Jesse-Pellot Rosa in favor of freshman Mike Anderson.

The Rams are 0-1 in the CAA after a 68-63 loss at UNC Wilmington (the team’s ninth straight against the Seahawks on the road) and 2-3 overall.

“Obviously,” Capel said, “we’d love to have more wins than we have right now. We lost to Wake Forest. We lost to UAB. We lost to UNC Wilmington. Those are three good teams, three tough environments to play in.”

What the Rams have done, Capel said, is “taken care of home.”

They won both of their home games, a comeback win over American and a blowout against Hampton.

The Spiders (3-2) are actually stumbling into Saturday’s game. Wainwright said that through these first few games, his team is still trying to find an identity.

“We’re fighting for our lives,” Wainwright said of his team, which will be short a couple of players coming off a 90-73 to Wake Forest, a team the Rams are more than familiar with.

“We’re fortunate we play them every year,” Wainwright said.