Stepping up: VCU men’s basketball team steps up after slow start

Adam Stern
Executive Editor
Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter

With their ambitious yet antsy teammates struggling to break out of their shell as the team headed out of halftime Thursday night, Darius Theus and Bradford Burgess knew their time as the pure and unadulterated leaders of the VCU men’s basketball program had come.

The NBA-bound players they had played with in the earliest days of their collegiate careers in Eric Maynor and Larry Sanders have only watched them play from the sidelines for years at this point. And now, the seniors of last season’s magical run to the Final Four were gone for good.

So before the second half started, the two players decided to turn their leadership level up a notch and pulled the team together to give the rest of their eight teammates a simple yet direct message :

“Let’s do this.”

Utilizing a relatively stellar second-half effort after a slow and, at times, sloppy first time, the Rams did do it, and were able to keep the Vulcans from scoring a point for over six minutes in the early portion of the second half. That span allowed them to eventually run away with the exhibition win, 71-48 before 6,675 at the Siegel Center.

“There was a stretch in second half where our press was really good and (the Vulcans) were having a tough time getting the ball across half court,” third-year head coach Shaka Smart said. “And I think it was because Darius and Brad pulled everybody together … so that’s always good to see.”

The disparity of the final score line reflected the Rams’ dominant second-half effort in which they scored 50 points but also belied a perhaps expected but nonetheless disconcerting opening 20 minutes in which the Rams were stone cold in their shooting (6-31 for 19.4 percent) and a bit sloppy with eight turnovers as well.

But once VCU’s three debuting freshmen on the night— with Briante Weber not dressing due to unspecified reasons— got into their groove, the Rams started to commandeer control. Most notably, freshman guard Treveon Graham, who scored a game-high 16 points including 13 in the second period.

“Our first game, (there were) jitters for a lot of people (with it being their) first game in Siegel and first time with fans filling up the stadium like that,” said Burgess. “So it was a different experience for  those guys but in the second half and toward the end of first half guys settled in.”

Said sophomore forward Juvonte Reddic, who started at the center position in the absence of D.J. Haley (concussion): “Everybody started off slow; everybody just had butterflies but as the game went on, everyone started picking up the intensity.”

Indeed, the Rams routed California (Pa.) for half a century in the second half and left the ultimate result in no doubt.