VCU drops USC, faces Georgetown on Friday

DAYTON, Ohio -- About 20 minutes after Virginia Commonwealth beat Southern California 59-46 in one of the First Four games of the NCAA tournament Wednesday, Rams coach Shaka Smart sat down for his postgame press conference and fired back at the critics.

“You guys think Jay Bilas watched that game?” Smart said.

That was his opening statement, one the Rams were eager to make after being the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism from ESPN analysts Bilas and Dick Vitale, among others, after being selected as an at-large team for the NCAA tournament.

VCU (24-11) didn’t exactly play an artistic “Take that, ESPN!” kind of game – it had to weather an off-shooting night -- but it won by pulling away late in the second half with what Smart called probably the best defensive effort of the year.

USC (19-15), a team that had beaten Texas, Tennessee, UCLA and Arizona and lost by two to Kansas, basically conceded the final minute.

“I want to credit VCU,” USC coach Kevin O’Neill said. “They played a great game. They more than proved they belong in the NCAA tournament.”

Now the 11^th-seeded Rams are moving on to play No. 6 seed Georgetown (21-10) Friday in Chicago in a first-round game in the Southwest Region.

“It feels really good because a lot of people were doubting us, and we were able to come out and prove some people wrong,” said forward Jamie Skeen, who had 16 points and nine rebounds. “Instead of just talking about it . . . we just came out here and played.”

This was a hungry team – and it showed.

The Rams beat USC to loose balls. They more than handled a good rebounding team – an area where VCU has problems – 40-31 on the boards. That total included 17 offensive rebounds, which helped the Rams survive a 33.9 percent shooting performance (20 of 59).

“Coach just told us to come out intense from the beginning, for 40 minutes,” said guard Bradford Burgess, who was only 3 of 13 from the floor but had nine points and 10 rebounds. “And that’s what we were doing. I think sometimes we were too intense, picking up some fouls. But it was about being aggressive on both ends of the floor.”

The Rams rotated Skeen and D.J. Haley and Juvonte Reddic on the Trojans’ 6-10 forwards, Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stepheson. Vucevic, averaging 17.3 points, got off just five shots and scored 11 points. Stepheson had four.

“They took me out of the game,” Vucevic said. “They had a guy on me the whole time. They didn’t let me get in my comfort zone and try to make plays. . . . It was tough for me to get in a rhythm on offense. And you’ve got to give them credit for that.”

VCU, a man-to-man, pressing team, came up with 15 turnovers. The Rams even used an effective zone because of foul trouble late in the game. The Trojans scored just three points in the final 7:40.

“It’s helped us over these last several games,” Smart said. “I don’t really like playing zone. The coaching staff was urging me to do it earlier in the half. I kept having to kind of wave them off. But USC was making a run on us and they kept getting in the lane. Their guards were doing a great job of penetrating, so we went to the zone.

“Number one, it shut down some of their penetration. Number two, it really took them out of an aggressive mindset and they were much more on their heels offensively.”

VCU made just 9 of 32 shots in the first half but still went to the locker room tied 22-22. But the Rams began to find the range on 3-pointers in the second half. They were 6 of 12 behind the arc after intermission.

Back-to-back 3-pointers from Joey Rodriguez – who was 0 for 5 in the first half – and another one from Brandon Rozzell in transition staked the Rams to a 10-point lead.

USC rallied twice to make it a one-possession game, but each time VCU responded with big plays and regained the momentum with 3-pointers.

Ed Nixon had one big one with the Rams ahead 44-43 with 6:43 remaining. Freshman guard Rob Brandenberg, an Ohio native with a lot of family members in the stands, had another. He had eight points in 16 minutes.

“He didn’t look scared at all by the moment,” Smart said. “Sometimes when you’ve got a freshman out there, you worry about him on this type of stage. But I thought Rob and our two other freshmen, D.J. and Juvonte, gave us great contributions.”

Shortly after the game ended, the Rams walked off the floor to its fans chanting “VCU! VCU!” and then “CAA! CAA!” a reference to the Colonial Athletic Association.   

“You know, it did motivate us seeing that stuff,” Rodriguez said. “We respect those guys, we respect their opinion, but we knew we belonged here. I thought we did a great job of coming out here and proving it today.

 “We’re not done. We’re going to come out and go after whoever we play next.”