Burgess is unquestioned leader on roster full of questions

Quinn Casteel
Assistant Sports Editor
Commonwealth Times’ Sports Twitter

Bradford Burgess stands alone atop the VCU men’s basketball roster.

He is the team’s lone senior and the only full-time starter returning from the 2010-2011 Final Four bunch. He was VCU’s second-leading scorer as a junior last season with 14.3 ppg and has more pressure on him this season than any other player in the CAA. Some of that pressure comes from the media, but a great deal of it is applied by head coach Shaka Smart, who has challenged Burgess repeatedly throughout the offseason.

“I thought Brad (Burgess) was our best player last year,” said Smart. “And he’s going to be our best player this year.”

Burgess may not have received the attention that some of the seniors got during the NCAA Tournament last season, but when Smart says he was the best player the numbers don’t lie. “Big Shot Brad” was second on the team with 15.7 ppg during the tournament and hit the unforgettable game-winning shot in overtime against Florida State in the Sweet Sixteen. He also set a VCU record with 1,380 minutes played in 2010-2011 and has started every game the Rams have played since he arrived as a freshman in 2008.

If he stays healthy this season, Burgess will be the premier “Iron Ram” in VCU history and perhaps also the premier “Do It All Man.” Last season Burgess joined the company of current NBA players Eric Maynor and Larry Sanders as the most recent player to score 1,000 career points. His offensive production this season could put him in with other elite company, and Smart wants to give him every opportunity for that.

“My biggest thing with Brad is, we got to get you a lot of shots,” said Smart. “We’ve got to get you to be aggressive every time out. Last year when he shot the ball at a high volume, usually good things happened for our team, so we’ve got to make sure that happens early in the year this year.”

Smart harped all preseason that Burgess is the unquestioned leader and go-to player on this team, and it all begins in practice. Before practice began, Smart told him that he was going to step up the intensity this season in order to expedite the development of the younger players, and he needed Burgess to help him.

“The coaches and I talked before the season about how practice was gonna go, and he said that he’s going to be the toughest he’s been ever since he’s been here,” said Burgess. “And if things aren’t going well from the jump that means we weren’t going as hard as we needed to so practice has been pretty rough. Some guys have been getting kicked out, struggling in practice, but it’s all things that will make us better in the long run.”

As the only senior, Burgess is like another coach on the floor. He knows the system better than anyone else and has the knowledge to play any of the five positions. And with so little experience on the rest of the roster, he will likely find himself playing a very wide range of spots throughout games. Although his natural position is shooting guard, Smart said so far Burgess is the second-best distributor on the team.

“He’s going to play anywhere from shooting guard to power forward, and then he can even play some point guard if we needed him to,” said Smart. “Actually, when we play him in practice, he runs the point probably the second-best as far as running our team.”

Darius Theus has a stranglehold on the starting point guard spot, which means the time Burgess spends at the point will be very limited. One aspect where he won’t be limited though is rebounding. Burgess was second on the team in rebounding last season behind Jamie Skeen at 6.3 RPG, and will need to match that this year if the Rams are going to compete with the CAA’s elite crashers such as Old Dominion and George Mason.

The expectations for Burgess this season are astronomical, but he knows his numbers mean nothing if the team isn’t winning, which is the only thing he cares about.

“New guys have to step up,” he said. “Not just myself.”