Defense, energy propel VCU to dominant win over Virginia State

Ryan Grube, Staff Writer

VCU is notoriously known for its swarming, Havoc-style defense. On Saturday night, the black and gold’s suffocating tactics were on full display against the visiting Virginia State.

The Rams rode their defense to a 90-53 rout of the Trojans in the team’s dress rehearsal exhibition game.

Coach Mike Rhoades and company held Virginia State to 34% shooting from the field, and 25% from deep.

Rhoades said while there are some areas he would like to clean up, a positive takeaway was his guys’ constant movement on the defensive side of the ball.

“I thought we had a lot of guys flying around. Great activity on the ball, activity off the ball helped,” Rhoades said. “We can play so hard because we have a lot of guys.”

That energy was evident from the get-go for Rhoades. He said the players’ liveliness in shootaround served as a sign of things to come once the game began.

“I thought it was great, guys were excited. They were excited for each other,” Rhoades said. “The best thing about tonight was our guys were celebrating each other’s successes. We had one key today — be a great teammate, and we saw a lot of that tonight.” 

The black and gold forced 24 Trojan turnovers, capitalizing on 27 points scored off those giveaways.

Rhoades said he was encouraged by his players’ ability to turn over Virginia State at will, given his team’s goal of making life very tough for their opponents.

“That’s what we do. We want to keep everybody uncomfortable,” Rhoades said. “If we can create great activity with 11, 12 guys all the time, it’s really hard to play against for 40 minutes.”

Rhoades mentioned the team’s magic number for turnovers will be determined for each matchup, but the head coach added a goal of 40 deflections per game.  

The deflection number was certainly up there in Saturday’s contest. VCU created several turnover opportunities with its constant pressure on the ball.

The Rams deployed a combination of their refined half-court Havoc defense, mixed in with the old roots of Shaka Smart’s full-court trap.

Rhoades said this year’s squad could present opportunities to be more aggressive on the defensive side throughout the season.

“I think we trapped more today because there was some more opportunities to trap,” Rhoades said. “I think with our length and how the second team is, I think we could trap more like we have with some past teams. I think that could help us.”

As the regular season nears, VCU will shift its focus to cleaning up mistakes. But, if there’s one area that doesn’t need much patching, it’s the Rams’ defense. 

“We want to make it so hard to get the ball up the court, and even harder to find a way to score,” Rhoades said. “We have to live by that, that’s who we are.”

VCU will be back in the Siegel Center Nov. 5 for its regular season home opener against St. Francis (Pa.) at 7 p.m.