VCU sinks LSU, St. Johns in Battle 4 Atlantis
Will Wade and the VCU men’s basketball team returned home from the Bahamas over Thanksgiving weekend with a little sun, two victories and a restored sense of confidence.
VCU edged out Lousiana State University 85-74 on Friday to win the final game of the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament and place fifth overall, just two days after the Rams blew a 36-28 halftime lead in the opening-round to the eventual tournament winner, No. 20 Baylor University.
LSU
Junior forward Justin Tillman scored a season-high 17 points to secure the fifth-seed in Friday’s game against LSU.
The 6-foot-7 rim protector missed two straight games due to a left foot injury before traveling to the Bahamas. Tillman saw limited minutes against Baylor, but cranked up his game day-by-day.
In 26 minutes of action, Tillman finished 8-of-9 from the floor while also pulling down eight rebounds.
“I had to get back into the game and just start picking it up, game by game,” Tillman said.
Senior guard JeQuan Lewis also had a strong game for the Rams, leading both teams in points with 19 total and including the 1,000th point of his collegiate career.
Lewis poured in 14 of his 19 points in the second half as VCU built a 19-point lead. The Rams pushed a 40-33 halftime lead into double-digits about five minutes into the second half and kept LSU out of arm’s reach the rest of the game.
“I think we got off to a better start the second half,” Wade said. “By the first media (timeout) we’d expanded the lead by just a point but we hadn’t given any ground like we had in the Baylor game.”
Lewis’ final bucket — off a steal with 22 seconds remaining — earned him his 1,000th career point. The Dixon, Tennessee native finished with a season-high of nine assists, five rebounds and three steals.
Redshirt-freshman guard Samir Doughty added a season-high 12 points and seven rebounds in 27 minutes on the floor.
VCU’s defense, often credited as one of the strongest in the country, forced 18 turnovers and converted 19 points off of them. The Black and Gold also collected 14 total steals, with junior guard Jonathan Williams, redshirt-senior guard/forward Jordan Burgess and Lewis all recording three a piece, respectively.
The Rams also committed a season-low of eight turnovers against the Tigers.
“We’re thrilled to leave here two and one,” Wade said. “We put a lot into that Baylor game and we came up short, and we rallied, and to come up with two wins and hopefully this is something we can build on for the rest of this season. It was a great experience for us.”
St. John’s
Williams made it known he is a force to be reckoned with against St. John’s. The Richmond native scored a career-high 22 points and dished out six assists to lift VCU past St. John’s University 75-69 on Thanksgiving day.
Williams’ sweet spot from around the elbow and powerful drives to the basket saved VCU on several possessions. The starting guard snapped late ties twice, first with 5:31 left with a short jumper, then with a layup with 3:59 remaining to push the Rams in front for good at 67-65.
St. John’s Shamorie Ponds drew the Red Storm within 69-67 with two free throws, but Williams knocked down both ends of a 1-and-1 with 2:02 remaining, giving the Rams a four-point lead. Lewis and redshirt-senior forward Mo Alie-Cox secured the win with a pair of free throws in the final minute.
“I’m really proud of Johnny,” Wade said. “He’s one of our hardest workers, if not our hardest worker, and to see all that rewarded today (is nice). When I leave the office late at night, he’s in their shooting free throws and he stepped up there and banged in that 1-and-1.”
Williams hit on 8-of-15 attempts from the field and knocked down 6-of-7 free throws, committing just one turnover.
“We all came together as a team and was like, ‘The most energized team is going to win,'” Williams said.
Williams’ drive gave VCU a 67-65 lead, then Lewis had a driving score of his own. Lewis and Alie-Cox went 4-4 at the foul line in the last 13 seconds to help seal the win on a night when both teams blew double-digit leads — St. John’s by 13 in the first half, VCU by 11 with about 14 minutes left.
Lewis and Alie-Cox added 15 points each for the Rams.
“We’d been preparing for that for a while, we put a ton into that game,” Wade said. “It was a little bit of a gut-punch when we had the lead in the second half and couldn’t close it out. So I’m really proud of the way our guys responded.”
Baylor
Lewis scored the first eight points for VCU to contribute to a game-high 21 points, but a hot hand from Lewis wasn’t enough for VCU to pull off the upset over Baylor University Wednesday.
Baylor drew first blood, taking an early 6-0 lead in the game, but VCU controlled the next 18 minutes. The Rams shot 14-of-24 in the first half and forced 11 turnovers on the way to an 8-point lead.
After trailing 36-28 at halftime, Baylor refused to go down without a fight, catching up to the Rams in the final 10 minutes after straggling behind, to win the first game of the tournament 71-63.
VCU dominated in the first half — outshooting the Bears 58 percent compared to Baylor’s 43 percent. Lewis led the team in points at the half with 11.
VCU grabbed a halftime lead behind strong play by Williams and senior forward Ahmed Hamdy. The inside-out duo combined for 19 first-half points for VCU.
Hamdy finished with a season-high 14 points and shot 55 percent against the Bears while Williams turned a series of acrobatic floaters and hard drives into 12 points. He was 6-of-9 from the floor.
A 3-pointer from the left wing by Al Freeman with 4:33 left to play would be the final punch to keep the Rams from coming back. A 7-2 Baylor run gave the Bears the lead for good at 58-53. The Rams kept the Bears on their toes, but Baylor guard Manu Lecomte was 8-of-8 from the charity stripe in the final 1:36.
Lewis went 5-for-10 from behind the arc in 39 minutes of play, and recorded 5 assists and 3 steals.
“It was a good game, I think we played really well for about 25 minutes,” Wade said. “It got away from us there the last 15 minutes. They really got us on the glass with offensive rebounds with Motley. They’re a really good team and we weren’t able to dictate the action for a full 40 minutes,” Wade said.
Baylor outrebounded VCU 34-26.
Up next, VCU will host Princeton on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Stuart C. Siegel Center. The Tigers are 2-2 on the season.
SPORTS EDITOR
Sophia Belletti
Sophia is a junior journalism major pursuing a minor in gender, sexuality and women’s studies. She enjoys writing about current events and sports, and hopes to one day be a sports reporter covering soccer, basketball and/or baseball. You can usually find Sophia drinking way too much coffee and laughing at her own jokes.
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