Column: Scheduling strategy paying dividends for young men’s basketball side

Benjamin Ashauer
Columnist
Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter

OPINION

Heading into Sunday’s game versus George Washington, it appeared as if VCU had learned from its early-season struggles in the second halves of their games. The Charleston Classic, a tournament two weeks ago where the Rams consistently lost all focus in their game plan at halftime, seemed to be a thing of the past after nearly knocking off No. 13 Alabama, as well as completely annihilating Western Kentucky and South Florida.

And by halftime of their game against the Colonials in Washington D.C., VCU was in full control with a 43-26 lead. However, the Rams reverted to classic form in the second half and allowed the Colonials to cut the lead to just six points with about five minutes left in the game.

Luckily, Coach Shaka Smart called a critical timeout that got the offense back on its feet after GW cut the lead to six with just over five minutes remaining.

Immediately following the timeout, freshman Briante Weber shed his youthful impatience and made one of the most important plays of the game: He drove the ball from the right wing with a GW player riding him all the way and had an awkward angle at the basket that he probably would have taken and missed if he was put into the same position earlier on in the season. Instead, he slowed down, waited for a teammate to get open, and dished it to junior Darius Theus, who knocked down the wide-open three-pointer.

From that point, the Rams settled down and calmly finished the game the way they intended: a knockout victory to take back to Richmond.

A lot of credit has to go to Smart and athletic director Norwood Teague for the way they handled the early schedule to this season. Young teams like VCU go through these type of troubles to start the year. By scheduling very winnable away games against teams like USF, WKU and GWU, the Rams have been able to work through these growing pains without having it hurt their confidence with too many losses.

So what if it hurts their strength of schedule?

No one expected VCU to get an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament this year, and winning the CAA Tournament is probably the only way they will be able to make the Big Dance.

And the way the rest of the teams in the CAA are looking so far, that goal is looking very realistic.

If you look at it objectively, the main point of the remaining out-of-conference schedule will be used as working through their growing pains and preparing for CAA play.

Of course, the team shouldn’t be looking at it this way, but they should be happy with the form they will be in – and the form they are already in – by the time conference play comes around.

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Photo by: Chris Conway/The CT