Three-point melee: Men’s basketball looks to deep ball for tournament success

Junior guard Bradford Burgess went 2-for-3 from beyond the arc in VCU's rout of Kansas Sunday

Jim Swing
Assistant Sports Editor
Commonwealth Times’ Sports Twitter

Junior guard Bradford Burgess went 2-for-3 from beyond the arc in VCU's rout of Kansas Sunday. Photo by Kyle LaFerriere.

Live by the three and die by the three.

That’s how the old saying goes in basketball that defines the triumphs and downfalls of teams who rely on the ever so important 3-pointer.

But as of lately, the VCU men’s basketball team has done a lot of living by the three and now it has propelled them into the school’s first ever Final Four berth.

Following Sunday’s 71-61 victory over Kansas in the Elite 8, the Rams have now drilled 53 shots from beyond the arc which ties for fifth-most by a team in NCAA tournament history.

“We gave open looks,” Jayhawks’ senior guard Tyrell Reed said after VCU matched its season-high of 12 treys against his team. “They’re a great three-point shooting team, and you can’t let them get on a roll.”

For the third time all season, the Rams dropped a dozen 3-pointers on their opponent.

The catch? All three of those occasions came in the NCAA tournament against Georgetown, Florida State and now Kansas.

“What it was is they had us on our heels early,” Jayhawks’ head coach Bill Self (1-5 in the Elite 8) said. “They made some hard shots. I mean good gosh, give them some credit give them some credit, they made some hard shots.”

None were potentially bigger than the 3-pointer made by senior guard Joey Rodriguez – just his second of the day – with just under five minutes remaining in the game that ended Kansas’ bid at a second half comeback and pushed VCU’s lead to eight.

“We’re pressing the whole game, so sometimes it takes a lot out of you,” Rodriguez said. “But my guys told me to dig deep and Brandon (Rozzell) told me to keep shooting and I just hit that big shot.”

Rodriguez’ clutch heroics come as no surprise for those who know the Rams’ best and neither is the pure shooting of classmate Rozzell.

Rozzell went a cool 4-of-7 from long-range on the Jayhawks, adding to his tally of 17 in the NCAA tournament.

“Brandon was unconscious in the first half, hitting big threes and we need that,” junior guard Bradford Burgess said of his teammates performance. “It was very important for us.”

The three-point circus has spread throughout the team like a healthy virus that even 6-foot-9; 240-pound big-man Jamie Skeen has gotten a taste of the action.

The senior forward does not limited himself to the paint, occasionally stepping out of his region and into the dangerous three-point territory, also going 4-for-7 Sunday afternoon.

“I just tried to stretch them out and I felt like they was pretty strong on the post, so I tried to take them from the outside,” Skeen said. “They gave me a lot of open threes. When you have your hand down, I just take a shot.”

This time of year it doesn’t seem to matter how big you are or what position you play, the Rams’ are firing on all cylinders and every player is snagging a piece of the long-range pie and now it has become critical.

The skeptics have spoken and now silenced and one thing stands relevant, the three-point shot has VCU not just living, but living in the Final Four.

1 Comment

  1. Congrats VCU – You played a very good game. I am a Jayhawker in Kansas but wanted to extend my congrats to your team. You looked really good and although we are heartbroken our Hawks were defeated, it’s nice to see “Cinderella” finish first once in awhile. I’m from a small town and I know what it means to beat Goliath. Good luck against Butler.

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