Rams not looking past A-10 Tournament
For VCU, this year’s two-week marathon of bubble teams sweating it out during league tournaments is undeniably unlike years past.
Jim Swing
Sports Editor
That sound you hear? It’s the sound of teams clinging on to the NCAA Tournament bubble sweating out what, for some, is the most stressful week of the college basketball season.
As conference tournaments unfold, VCU, even without a guaranteed auto-bid in hand, is not one of them.
The world of bracketology says the Rams can go to Brooklyn, relax, sit back and play with house money in the Atlantic 10 Tournament this weekend.
Most bracketologists have the Rams seeded anywhere from a No. 5 seed to a No. 7 in the NCAA Tournament regardless of what takes place in the conference tournament.
For VCU, this year’s two-week marathon of bubble teams sweating it out during league tournaments is undeniably unlike years past. This go-round, with 10 wins over top 100 teams in the RPI, life beyond Brooklyn is all but promised.
But they aren’t looking that far ahead. Their sights are on an Atlantic 10 championship after letting a share of the regular season title slip away with a loss at Temple last Sunday.
“It’s the same approach,” VCU point guard Darius Theus said. “We want this championship very bad no matter if we’re already in or not.”
Of course, somebody has to talk about it. That’s what assistant coach Will Wade, trainer Eddie Benion and director of basketball operations Mike Morrell are for. They’ve been reporting to players and fellow coaches the shifts in the projected brackets and where VCU might land.
“They sometimes keep me informed,” VCU head coach Shaka Smart said. “I tell them I don’t care about that stuff.”
It was just two seasons ago Smart didn’t even gather his team together to watch the bracket unveiled on Selection Sunday. He’s denied being one to pay any mind to the bracket predictions, but sure enough the Rams were selected to the field and later advanced to the Final Four as a 12-seed.
“Eddie always checks on it,” Theus said. “He’ll say, ‘We’re something-something seed now, we need to win more games.’”
The reality of it is VCU will likely be chosen as a single-digit seed for the first time in 28 years.
The Rams were a two-seed in 1985 and lost to Alabama in the second round of the tournament. In two of the prior four seasons, VCU received a No. 5 seed in 1981 and 1983, falling in the second round both years.
“In my years of being here we were a double-digit seed and I think it’s just another chance to make history,” Theus said. “It can be a great thing for us too, going into the tournament.”
Perhaps that’s thinking too far ahead.
Against a Temple team that essentially had a season on the line Sunday, VCU, which was locked into the No. 2 seed in the A-10 Tournament, admittedly got too cozy. The Rams blew a 16-point lead in the first half and fell behind by as much as 17 after the break.
“That’s basically what (Smart) said in the past two days after we lost to Temple,” freshman guard Melvin Johnson said. “How comfortable we felt and looked versus VCU is at its best when we have something to prove.”
The Rams can prove themselves this weekend by hoisting a championship trophy in their first year in the Atlantic 10, a rare feat in college basketball.
VCU views this weekend as a business trip. Bunkering up in a hotel, Smart noted, can be a distraction factor when sports television is ceaselessly spitting out bracket chatter that could sway a college player’s focus.
VCU has experienced the anxiety of having to win three or four games in a row at a conference tournament in order to get a bid to the Big Dance. It creates a sense of urgency.
This time around the Rams can breathe a bit easier, but not too easily.
“This year we won’t have that same anxiety,” Smart said. “But we need to create our own urgency to win and I believe we will.”