Rams charge over Patriots

While watching his team play Thursday night, Jim Larranaga did not look like the confident and poised coach basketball fans saw during his team’s run from at-large nobodies to Final Four contenders.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Larranaga lost his cool quite a few times, jumping and screaming at the referees and his players as the Rams defeated the George Mason Patriots 63-49 before a standing room only crowd of 7,585 at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.

“Yes, VCU is good enough” to receive an at-large bid, a calmer Larranaga said after the game. “But there are too many factors and too many other teams that are going to be in consideration.”

One factor that will have to come under consideration is the play of VCU’s defense, especially in the first half of as the Rams forced Mason to just under 28 percent shooting. The Rams combination of a 2-3 zone along with their trademark pressure play forced Mason into some bad turnovers as they struggled to find their two big men; Will Thomas and Darryl Monroe. So frustrated was Larranaga that he was forced to burn three timeouts in a struggle to keep up with the Rams.

“I was really proud of our guys and the way we came out defensively,” said VCU head coach Anthony Grant. “I thought we put together a really good first half.”

Come the second, though, it appeared the game would be a tale of two halves, a tale that would not paint VCU in a positive light.

The Score
VCU 63
GMU 49

With their intensity level up tenfold, Mason managed to cut VCU’s advantage from 12 points two minutes into the half, to just four with some improved play from Thomas and Monroe.

But Mason had not planned on Calvin Roland (Hephzibah, Ga./Hephzibah) stepping up, literally.

“From our scouting report all I knew about Roland was that he was an offensive rebounder.” Thomas said.

Larranaga will no doubt be having another tantrum when his team gets back to Fairfax – this time at his scouts – as Roland caught fire coming off the bench during the second half.

Seconds after Mason had pulled within four, Roland’s three-point play brought the seventh largest crowd in Stuart. C. Siegel Center history, a crowd that included Gov. Tim Kaine and members of the Virginia General Assembly, to their feet.

With new life breathed into their play, Eric Maynor (Fayetteville, N.C./Westover) stole the ball on Mason’s ensuing inbound. Maynor then put B.A. Walker (Onancock, Va./Nandua), ahead for an easy lay-up and just like that VCU was back in it.

Mason would go on another run, coming within four again. But aided by Roland’s eight second half points and some clutch shooting from the stripe by VCU’s star guard trio of Maynor, B.A. Walker and Jesse Pellot-Rosa (Richmond, Va./George Wythe) the Rams pulled through to the win.

“The coaches do a really good job at practice every day getting us ready for games,” said VCU forward Wil Fameni (Douala, Cameroon/Amelia Academy). “We (never) feel any pressure.

“In these types of games there’s always going to be runs and adversity that comes up,” Grant said. “Every night a team is going to have to show its character and our team did a good job fighting through that.”

A big part of VCU’s resilience came from their big men, a part of the team that is often overshadowed by their teammates in the backcourt. Roland and Famini both scored in the double figures.

“A lot of people think our frontcourt is our Achilles Heel,” said Roland. “We don’t believe that. We just go out an play our hearts out every night.”

When told of Mason’s scouting report, a smiling Roland said, “you just have to come out and play every night and sometimes, you just have to thrown the scouting report out the window.”