The three-pointer from the top of the key by Jesse Pellot-Rosa, a floater by Michael Doles as he cut through the lane and a two-handed flush by Ricardo “Slim” Dixon.
They all fell.
So did another 3 by Doles on the wing, another two-hander by Dixon (with Towson forward Lawrence Hamm caught underneath) and another long jumper from Pellot-Rosa. Even big man Calvin Roland got in on the action, hitting a rangy jump shot from the baseline that capped a 21-8 run and official started VCU’s rout of Towson on homecoming.
The Rams were dropping baskets all night from all over the court, scoring a season-high 84 points in a blowout win over Towson.
Five Rams reached double-digits point totals in Saturday night’s win 84-51 win over the Tigers. VCU shot 49.2 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from three-point range and all but two players made a mark in the scoring column for the Rams.
Shots weren’t dropping the same way for the Tigers, who lost their 24th straight road game and their sixth straight contest in the Colonial Athletic Association.
The Tigers (2-10 CAA, 5-17) shot 30 percent from the field, 20 percent from beyond the arc and missed all six of second-half 3-pointers.
The Rams (8-4, 12-9) frustrated Tigers coach Pat Kennedy, who’s had a rough introduction to CAA play in his first season. Kennedy picked up a technical foul in the second half for arguing a foul as the game was getting out of hand.
“We’ve lost a lot of games in a row,” Kennedy said. “When you’re losing and you’re not getting frustrated there’s something wrong with you. It’s like you’re accepting the losing.”
VCU also got in the head of Towson’s leading scorer Mike Green, who came into the game averaging 12.6 points, by holding him to 9 points on 3-of-17 shooting. Green missed all five of his shots from behind the arc, and his off night was capped by being stuffed by Pellot-Rosa after Green tried to put him on a street.
“He was doing all this dribbling and he wasn’t going (anywhere),” Pellot-Rosa said. “I was just trying to stay in front of him.”
Defense hasn’t been a concern recently for VCU, which is holding CAA competition to 63.5 points per game-the third-stingiest clip in the conference. But after Wednesday’s loss to Hofstra, the Rams were looking to improve their attack.
They did, posting their fourth 80-point performance of the season, and the homecoming crowd of 6,986 fans at the Stuart C. Siegel Center, Doles said, may have had something to do with it.
“If you don’t want to play in front of all your peers,” Doles said, “you don’t want to play.”
Doles, a senior swingman, scored a game-high 17 points, hitting double digits for the 13th straight game. Towson flip-flopped between box-and-one and triangle-and-two defenses, focusing on Doles and B.A. Walker and forcing Doles into ball handling situations.
The consequence, however, was Doles being able to find teammates like Pellot-Rosa, who “wanted to come out and be more aggressive on offense.”
“They were leaving me a couple of wide-open shots,” said Pellot-Rosa, a 6-foot-4 sophomore. “I just had to take advantage.”
Pellot-Rosa’s 14 points were the most he’s put up since a Dec. 1 home game against Hampton. He was two points shy of his career high.
He scored 11 of his 14 points in the first half not only by knocking down the open shot when it was there, but also by connecting from the free-throw line (4 of 6 in the first half) and by picking up scavenger points by crashing the boards and getting tip-ins.
Head coach Jeff Capel was most impressed with the way the team made baskets in the first half. Cold starts have crippled the Rams’ firsthalf production. The team has scored 658 points combined in the first half of all its games, 14 percent less than the 751 second-half total
“We’ve talked about our offense, and we’ve worked on our offense,” said Capel, who even took a scene from the classic hoops movie “Hoosiers” and took a tape measure to both baskets just to show his team that the goal at the west end of the court (which the team shoots at in the first half) is the same as the one at the east end.
Setup for the homecoming concert forced the team to practice at Franklin Street Gym on Friday, but Capel said that with the way his team played, he may have to consider practicing there more often.
Dixon scored 14 off the bench for the Rams, pulling up for a couple of J’s, but mostly throwing down dunks that gave the homecoming crowd something to scream about. Freshman Jamal Shuler completely did away with the concept of garbage time, scoring eight points in the final three minutes of the game. Shuler connected on both of his three-point attempts, and the only thing that kept him from being VCU’s sixth player to reach double figures was a pair of missed free throws with 1:16 remaining.
The team got major production from its post players, who have been under intense scrutiny all season. Nick George scored 12 points, pulled down eight rebounds and dished out a game-high five assists. Junior transfer Calvin Roland nearly matched George with 11 points and eight boards.
“We have some other guys that are capable of scoring,” Capel said, “but we need to do it on a more consistent basis.”
It would be convenient for VCU if that consistency kicked in this week, considering the Rams are on the road against two of the top three teams in the conference: Drexel (8-4, 12-8) and Old Dominion (11-1, 21-3).
VCU is 2-4 against Drexel in the Capel era. The Dragons fled the Siegel Center Jan. 12 with a win at the buzzer. The Rams handed ODU its only CAA loss of the season Jan. 29. But in the three games since then, the Monarchs have pounded their opponents by a combined score of 230 to 194.
With the CAA tournament less than a month away, Doles said, “We really need to win these two games if we want to put ourselves in a good position at the end of the season.”