Missed opportunities leads to VCU loss at Drexel

Jim Swing
Sports Editor
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PHILADELPHIA—Shaka Smart sat back in his chair and took a deep, dark, elongated stare at the final statistics he cradled in his hands. The VCU men’s basketball head coach bit his bottom lip, stone-faced and seemingly looking for an answer.

A simple glance at the stats sheet couldn’t tell the story. It rarely ever does. And on a night when an ailing VCU basketball team appeared to be on the right side of the numbers, one look on paper would send you in the wrong direction.

Shots from the field: VCU 21-of-58, Drexel just 16-for-39. The Rams hit seven 3-pointers to the Dragons’ five. Drexel turned the ball over 11 times, VCU just nine. The Rams had held senior forward Samme Givens – a Preseason First Team All-CAA pick and the Dragon’s leading scorer and rebounder – to just four points and forced him to foul out late in the second half.

Yet, VCU still somehow ended up on the wrong end of a 64-58 loss at Drexel, the Rams’ second in a row.

“Give a lot of credit to Drexel, they fought and battled and made some very big plays down the stretch; made some big shots.” Smart said. “They got to the line 35 times, made a good number of their free throws and they just made more big plays down the stretch and that’s why they won.”

If one set of numbers could assist writing the script to Sunday’s night’s loss, it resides in the free throw category. Again and again it seemed as if the Rams couldn’t capitalize from the charity stripe – and quite frankly they couldn’t – shooting a measly 9-of-20 from the line. Coming into the game, they led the CAA in free throw percentage, shooting just over 73 percent from the line.

Juvonte Reddic and Bradford Burgess sat quietly at the post-game press conference searching for an answer.

Still, there was none.

“Obviously guys aren’t trying to miss them,” Smart said. “But when we did miss some of those free throws, particularly in the first half, it’s just failed opportunities.”

Missed opportunities summed up the night. Perhaps none was more evident than Reddic’s missed free throw on the back end of two shots just over four and a half minutes into the second half, which could’ve pushed the VCU lead to eight, the largest of the night. Instead it clanked off the rim, like many others, allowing Drexel to tear off a 10-4 run and take the lead.

“We’ll spend some time on free throws, we’ll work on them,” Smart said. “I liked the guys that are getting to the line, those guys are good shooters.

“You’ve just got to lock in and have the mental toughness to make them.”

For Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint, it was an aide in finding his team it’s second-straight conference win.

“It helped out,” Flint said. “They missed some ones that made the game a little tighter than it was.”

And then there was rebounding. In three matchups last season Drexel pounded VCU, outrebounding the Rams by a combined 26 boards. On Sunday night the Rams battled and bruised a much bigger Drexel squad until both teams were dead even on the glass, a statistic Smart will take any day.

“We were even on the glass so you feel like going into the game if you can be even on the glass with a team like Drexel, you’ll have a great chance to win,” Smart said.

It was just another set of numbers that favored the Rams in a game that should’ve been all but theirs.
But on a night where the script seemed written to VCU’s advantage, the end result left nothing but questions.