Smart keeps practice loose for VCU

HOUSTON – Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart has kept things spirited and loose for his team during shootaround practices in the NCAA tournament.

He had athletic trainer Eddie Benion provide comic relief by trying to go up and down the court and make layups in Dayton. He had senior guard Joey Rodriguez challenge former NBA sniper Steve Kerr to a 3-point shooting contest in San Antonio.

Friday, at the end of their 50-minute Final Four workout before about 5,000 fans at 71,500-seat Reliant Stadium, he pulled out the dreaded Iron Man drill – with a twist that left his team charged up.

The Iron Man drill involves a player taking a charge, getting up, sprinting to the sideline and diving for a loose ball, getting up, sprinting to the other sideline and saving a ball from going out of bounds.

Players don’t exactly enjoy it. “Nobody really wants to do that,” guard Ed Nixon said.

So Smart made the coaching staff do it. First went 45-year-old assistant Mike Jones. He did his dive, cut his right elbow and started bleeding. Jones had to get four stitches.

Next up was 28-year-old assistant Will Wade. Then came 38-year-old assistant Mike Rhoades, who used the drill when he was the head coach at Randolph-Macon. “We couldn’t block shots, so we had to take a lot of charges,” said Rhoades, who scraped his knee on the dive.

Last came the 33-year-old Smart, who bounded into his defensive position. He absorbed a full-contact hit from Reco McCarter, got up and hustled through the drill as players followed him around the floor, hooting and hollering.

“We've been talking about how important some of the defensive things are to the game [against Butler Saturday night],” Smart said. “Our coaches figured we would step in and put our bodies where our mouth is.”

The coaching staff has participated in the drill two or three times this season. The last time they did it was at William and Mary on Jan. 12.

“That was the game Brandon [Rozzell] broke his hand,” Jones said. “He wasn’t there, so he missed it. When he came back to the hotel, all the guys were like, ‘You missed it! You missed it! You should have seen Coach Smart diving for balls on the floor.’

“They really got charged up about it. It’s all in fun.”

There is a serious point to it, though.

The Rams didn’t take enough charges last season. That’s something the coaching staff wants them to have in mind when they play Butler in the national semifinals.

“This preseason, we talked about taking more charges on drives to the basket,” Rhoades said. “I bet you the first 45 days of the season, everyone had to do that drill.

“We have taken a lot more charges this year.”

The players take the part about ramming into the coaches seriously. Rhoades said 6-foot-8, 235-pound Toby Veal hit him so hard one time he couldn’t breathe right for three days.

“We usually have to beat each other up like that, so they’ve got to feel our pain,” Nixon said.

Said Rozzell: “It’s just like a game. You run them over no matter who’s in front of you, no matter whether it’s Coach Smart, Norwood [Teague, the athletic director], the mayor of Richmond, they’ve got to get run over.

“I challenge the mayor to step out here and do the Iron Man when the Rams win.”

Smart also wanted to promote a loose atmosphere after a more serious practice earlier at Houston Baptist College. He let the Rams’ frontcourt players engage in a brief dunking exhibition. That ended with the 5-10 Rodriguez sprinting down the lane and getting a lift from Veal for a jam.

In an interview on the court after practice, CBS announcer Jim Nantz told Smart he had never seen such a spirited Final Four workout.

“It sparks a lot of energy on our team, just to jump up and down in the huddle [afterward] with the coaches,” Rozzell said. “When you finish, you get a few laughs.

“It’s all part of how we’ve been since we got in this tournament: A loose, joking, laughing group of guys. But that drill is something that wins ballgames. Taking a charge, diving on the floor, saving the ball of bounds carries over to a game.”

Jones said all the fun has a benefit for the coaching staff as well.

“They’ve helped us stay loose,” he said. “Obviously coaches get uptight about some games. It’s worked both ways. They’ve helped us, and we’ve helped them.”