With Old Dominion on the horizon, all eyes remain on William & Mary

Jim Swing
Sports Editor
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Ask a college basketball coach about an upcoming stretch of games and you’ll probably get the same answer nine times out of 10.

It’s coach speak, and it sounds something like: “We’re taking it one game at a time.”

It’s the approach the VCU men’s basketball team will try to take when they compete in four crucial conference games in the small stretch of the next seven days. The stretch includes one very large game at the Siegel Center Saturday night when Old Dominion comes to town for what’s become one of the best – and most underrated – rivalries in Division I ball.

But before all the buzz and hoopla begins, the Rams are beckoned with the task of focusing on their date with William & Mary Thursday night, which stands in the way of one of their most anticipated games of the season.

How do you focus on Thanksgiving when Christmas is right around the corner? Not an issue for this young VCU team.

“It’s going to be a fun game once we get there, but to be honest with you, I’m focused on William & Mary at the time,” sophomore center D.J. Haley said. “That’s my honest answer.”

The amount of tension between VCU and William & Mary couldn’t hold water to that of what the Rams and Monarchs have. But what does hold palpable significance is what’s at stake nearly two-thirds of the way into the season.

With four games in seven days and five in 10, a meeting with the Tribe could make or break VCU’s momentum from here on out. Thinking too far ahead and overlooking an improving William & Mary team could prove costly for the Rams, who are looking to win their third straight conference game.

“The best way to do it is to take it one game at a time, never take any team for granted,” Haley said. “Just go out and play as hard as we can each and every game, and hopefully the outcome will be in our favor.”

Certainly the numbers side with the Rams. William & Mary sits in the lower tier of nearly every statistical category in the CAA. The Tribe hold the worst shooting defense (45.8 percent) and rebounding margin (-3.6) to go with the second-to-worst scoring offense in the league. VCU stands third in the conference in scoring offense (68.3 ppg) and scoring defense (59.7 ppg).

All that and the two teams are playing on the beloved home floor at the Siegel Center where the Rams boast one of the most difficult environments for opponents to play in.

Sounds like an all-but-guaranteed VCU victory right? Not in the eyes of head coach Shaka Smart, who admitted last year’s team – at times – looked at home games as a promised win. Three straight home losses at the end of the regular season put that theory to bed, and of course the rest is history.

“It’s good to have confidence, but there’s a fine line between confidence and overconfidence, and that’s something we’ve addressed with our team,” Smart said. “I think our guys, we’re better with that then we were last year. We have a younger group, a more humble group, so I think we’ve made progress there.”

After Thursday night’s game, VCU will remain on the home front for tilts against ODU Saturday and Hofstra Monday before hitting the road for a three-game road trip. But for now, all eyes are on the task at hand: the next game.

“ODU is definitely our rival, and I would be lying to you if I said that’s not a game everybody’s hyped for,” Haley said. “But we’re not really focused on ODU right now, we’re focused on William & Mary. We’ve got to take each game one at a time.”