Dog Fight

So, for the record, before last night VCU was sitting two games out of first place and had won five of its past six games. They had a chance to close to within one game of Colonial Athletic Association leader Old Dominion-that was assuming the Rams ran over James Madison, which came to the Stuart C. Siegel Center with a three-game losing strea.

They didn’t.

Instead, the Rams shot 33.9 percent from the field and 15.8 percent from three-point range and lost to the Dukes, 66-58, which changes everything, including the way the team will prepare for ODU this Saturday..

“I think we would have been relaxed,” said senior Michael Doles, who led the Rams with his fourth 22-point performance of the season. “I think we would have been a lot more relaxed in practice going into the game, but now I don’t think anybody’s going to be relaxed (today) or Friday.

“Everybody’s going to be a lot more focused, because we know we can’t slack off. We know it’s a thin line between us being a good team and us being an OK team.”

Going into last night’s games, the conference was still very much wide open. Three teams were within two games of the Monarchs throne, and slots No. 2 through 7 in the standings were packed tight with possible contenders. Delaware was breathing down the neck of Drexel, UNCW and VCU, and George Mason and Hofstra were laying in wait.

Even at the bottom of the conference, winless William & Mary was fighting a losing battle (pun intended) with the Dukes (2-6 CAA, 4-12) for last place in the conference.

But ODU sent Delaware tumbling down the conference ladder with a 71-62 win last night. And the Dukes began their climb out of the basement with their upset.

The only certainties in the CAA now appear to be a Monarchs win and a William & Mary losing streak, which almost came to an end last Sunday against VCU.

“I thought we’d be a team that just came out just anxious tonight, because we got so lucky at William & Mary,” VCU head coach Jeff Capel said. “But that didn’t happen tonight. And we played against a team that looked anxious, that looked hungry to get a win and to get their first road win in the conference.”

The 79-77 win should have put a spark in a team that’s had the ball bonce the wrong way all season in close games.

Of the 35 CAA games played through Sunday, almost a third of them (10 of 35) have been decided by five points or less. Before pulling out that two-point, road win over the Tribe in overtime, the Rams were 3-5 in conference games decided by five points or fewer, including a loss to Drexel over the winter break on a shot that even Dragons’ head coach James “Bruiser” Flint called lucky.

“Hey man, it’s always about luck,” he said. “We’ve just got to get lucky.”

Flint’s team has had to play in four of those games decided by five or less, and he said the league may come down to the same good fortune that helped his team leave Richmond with a “W.”

“It’s going to be one of those years in the league,” Drexel head coach James “Bruiser” Flint said after escaping the Siegel Center with a shot that even he said was lucky. “Watching teams on tape, it’s going to be a lot of close games, a lot of down to the wire games.”

VCU’s average margin of victory in its nine wins overall this season is 9.6 points.

On top of the Drexel game, the Rams have had to bounce back from a one-point loss at the buzzer to Mississippi and a four-point loss to Middle Tennessee State on the road with an 81-71 victory at George Mason then a 70-58 win at Towson.

“I’m a firm believer in ‘you create your own luck,” Capel said.

The more important issues, he said, were executing late in games (read: snatching the rebound away from Drexel’s Sean Brooks and not giving the second-chance opportunities) and making better decisions down the stretch (read: protecting the basketball instead of turning the ball over four times in the game’s final three minutes like they did against Mississippi) and playing better defense (read: locking up the second-worst team in the conference instead of letting them hit 46 percent of their shots).

“I think we’re getting better with that,” Capel said of the team’s decision making after a win at home against Hofstra. “Obviously that’s very important, because it’s a possession game. The thing we try to teach our guys is every possession’s precious. You know, a lot of people will look at the end of games and talk about those possessions, but I think every possession is very important.

“But obviously when you get late in the game and it’s a tight game, those possession become more important.”

While the team may have relaxed the next two days had they beaten JMU, Capel said before the game that there should be no getting comfortable over the course of the next 14 games.

Drexel is a different team, he said, now that Brooks has returned from a stress fracture in his foot that had him sidelined for nine games. Delaware is improved by getting preseason All-CAA first-teamer Mike Slattery back after breaking his thumb in December. And UNC Wilmington, a team that Capel said he’s surprised nobody’s talking about, are an even bigger threat now that they have 3-point marksman John Goldsberry has recovered from a shoulder sprain that kept him out of the lineup for two games.

If anything, Capel said that after the scare at William & Mary and the loss to James Madison, he has to figure out a way to get his team prepared to play as the conference schedule heats up.

“We lost because we didn’t play with any energy or effort, and that’s my fault,” Capel said. “I have to do a better job getting us ready to play. Whatever that is-if it’s practicing longer, doing more things, if it’s cutting practice short-I don’t know … but we have to do something, because I’ve been very disappointed in our performance our last two games.”

Saturday’s game against Old Dominion will be televised live by Comcast Sports Network (CC 53). Since Capel took over in 2002, the Rams are 4-0 against ODU, but the Monarchs, who recently received the Top 25 seal of approval from ESPN’s Dick Vitale, are a different’ team.

“I certainly hope we come ready to play, because if we’re not, it can get real ugly in here similar to two years ago when Wilmington came in here in first place and we got beat by 30. It can turn into that on Saturday, so we have to go back and regroup.”