Funs means ferocious: Rams playing lights out when loose
A few days after VCU senior point guard Joey Rodriguez played arguably one of the best games of his life versus Purdue, he noticed a play he couldn’t help but laugh about when he was watching the replay.
Adam Stern
Sports Editor
Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter
A few days after VCU senior point guard Joey Rodriguez played arguably one of the best games of his life versus Purdue, he noticed a play he couldn’t help but laugh about when he was watching the replay.
Seven minutes into the game against the Boilermakers, when the Rams were down five points— a number that remarkably would turn out to be their largest deficit of the game— the camera panned to a shot of Rodriguez and his teammates sharing a moment.
“We’re on the court laughing and giggling,” Rodriguez said.
Such a moment came to epitomize VCU and their poster-worthy post-season run the first few of the NCAA tournament. In front of a national audience the Rams concocted a healthy dose of being both fun and ferocious.
And the fun hasn’t stopped since then.
Rodriguez recorded an appearance on the popular radio show the Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio Tuesday. Fellow senior Jamie Skeen found his way onto ESPN2’s First Take Wednesday. Freshman guard Rob Brandenberg heard from his high school coach that his old school– if not the entire town of Columbus, Oh. itself– is buzzing about him.
And oh yeah, senior shooting guard Brandon Rozzell, who had to leave class a few minutes early at one point this week, received a standing ovation while doing so.
“Not having any pro teams (in Richmond), it’s kind of what people look forward to with VCU and Richmond basketball,” Rozzell said. “To go deep and advance and have the whole city behind us is a great feeling.”
It’s a feeling Jamie Skeen is getting to feel a lot of. The North Carolina native has never made it to the NCAA tournament in his five-year stint in college, but now that he’s here he seems to be embracing every second.
“Blowing up off the hook,” Skeen said of his phone after VCU’s win versus Purdue. “I had 77 text messages, 100 “at” messages (on Twitter)— some good and some bad.”
“I had family members I didn’t even know hitting me up on Facebook and how they want to hang out all of a sudden and I was like ‘dang I aint even know you were my cousin,’” Skeen said.
Nearly all members of the squad seem to have been utilizing social media to have fun. As if enough people weren’t Tweeting about VCU already, Lil B, the rapper who inspired VCU’s signature “cooking dance”, Tweeted the squad to shout them out for doing his dance on national television.
“It’s been crazy,” Brandenberg said.
Senior shooting guard Ed Nixon, who helped start up the cooking dance on the team and was described by Skeen on ESPN as the best dancer on the team, said the fun he exudes comes naturally.
“You can’t play basketball without having fun and that’s what were just focusing on,” Nixon said. “If you go out there confident and loose and your focused on the task, you’re going to be satisfied on the result.”
The squad will look to continue it’s loose yet lion-hearted play this weekend, enjoying it all just as much as ever.
“The fan base at VCU is already passionate so to make school history is a big deal,” Brandenberg said. “You have to cherish it.”
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Photo by Kyle Laferriere
