Adam Stern
Executive Editor
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With 13 minutes left in the game versus Northeastern Saturday night, Rob Brandenberg swished through a shot that stretched VCU’s lead from six points to nine.
The lead was a controlling one in some senses but not commanding enough in others as Northeastern had clung tight all night to the home-town team in a game that was hanging in the balance and tied as recently as halftime.
Yet as Brandenberg calmly drained two more 3-pointers over the next two minutes, the game was suddenly burst wide open with the lead pushed to an increasingly distant 13 points.
VCU kept it distant enough and marched past the Huskies 75-65 in the quarterfinals of the CAA Tournament largely on the back of the sophomore shooting guard, who just so happened to be the man with hot hand on the night in what has become VCU’s well-oiled machine of an offense. The Rams live to fight another day with the win and will face George Mason Sunday at 4:30 in the Coliseum.
“Our guys really turned it on in the second half there,” said VCU third year head coach Shaka Smart.
Brandenberg may have turned it on there the most.
“My teammates, they were good at finding me when I was open … I was ready to shoot, they went in,” Brandenberg said. “I just credit my teammates and Coach Smart for telling me to always be ready to shoot, even when I missed layups in the first half, so I just stuck with it and shots started to fall.”
Indeed, as stingy as the Huskies’ defense looked during a seven-minute stretch at the end of the first half in which VCU didn’t score, the rest of the time the Rams looked like they would have their way. Bradford Burgess canned two three-pointers early before succumbing to foul trouble. Treveon Graham provided his trademark smorgasbord of points via three 3-pointers, four free throws and three 2-pointers.
And, it should be noted, VCU freshman point guard Teddy Okereafor played what was almost undoubtedly his best game in a Ram uniform by dropping a career-high eight points and running the offense efficiently and coherently even while floor general Darius Theus was on the bench.
After the game, Smart noted that Okereafor had his best week of practice of the season and that, looking back, it thus wasn’t a coincidence that the Londoner had his best game yet after a week in which he practiced so diligently.
“Teddy did a really nice job running the team,” Smart said. “What you guys didn’t see is, he had his best week of practice this past week leading up to this game and it’s no coincidence that he played well.
“When guys play well in practice and keep getting better they get rewarded and get the opportunity in games and get a chance to show what they can do.”
Okereafor, for his part, agreed with his coach.
“Coach has just told me to be aggressive for the whole week leading into the CAA Tournament so I tried to do that and I think I did that tonight,” Okereafor told The CT after the game.
Asked how he’s been able to grow into his role, Okereafor noted “over the year I’ve played a lot of games now and going against guys like Briante, so I can deal with the pressure (defense) and with Darius, seeing how he leads the team, I’m just trying to go into the games and imitate that.”
Okereafor may well get another chance to do just that Sunday now that VCU has advanced to the tournament semifinal. VCU has split this year’s two games with GMU and also have the feather in their cap of having knocked out the Patriots in the post-season in three straight seasons.