This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The VCU program that captivated the nation with its underdog run to the final four in 2010-11 has seemingly traded in its "havoc" moniker in favor of magic. Supernatural abilities or slight of hand might provide the only explanation for some of the ways VCU has won this winter.
The Rams (26-8) enter their first-round game on Thursday at 5:20 p.m. against Saint Mary's (28-4) at Vivint Smart Home Arena having gone 8-3 in games decided by six points or fewer. That hardly tells the story of their nail-biting and heart-stopping wins snatched from the jaws of defeat.
During a four-day span in February, the Rams won back-to-back road games against Atlantic-10 Conference foes St. Bonaventure and George Washington despite trailing in both games with less than one second remaining. That's practically an impossible circumstance to come away with a win once, and the Rams pulled off the Houdini act and provided an encore performance.
"Those games added to our guys' belief in how we do things late in the game, and how we do things in this last six minutes," VCU coach Will Wade said. "We were fortunate to win those two games. They were two conference games. Two road games, two tough games. But I think it certainly helped get us to this point and helped our guys with confidence in what we're doing."
The Rams pulled off the win at St. Bonaventure in overtime after home-crowd fans stormed the court in celebration after the Bonnies made a 3-pointer to take a one-point lead with 0.5 seconds remaining. A technical foul was called, and Rams senior point guard JeQuan Lewis made the resulting free throw to force overtime.The Rams went 5-for-8 from the floor in overtime escape with a win.
In their next game, the Rams trailed by one point with 0.4 seconds left at George Washington. Lewis got knocked to the floor and drew a foul while the Rams were attempting to inbound the ball. He went to the free throw line and made both shots to give his team a one-point win.
March Madness almost always features crazy endings where every split second matters, but that's been how the Rams have played throughout the season.
"When you're playing good teams it's going to come down to the wire," Lewis said. "You've got to follow through with the details and execute the game plan. And Coach Wade did a great job and we did a good job of following through with it."
The Rams face a daunting task Thursday against a Saint Mary's team that lost just four games this season — with three of those losses coming to Gonzaga. Wade called Saint Mary's the best offensive team the Rams will face all season, while Saint Mary's also ranks second in the nation in scoring defense (56.5 points per game allowed).
The Rams will have the advantage of having been through the NCAA tournament before. Saint Mary's last appeared in the dance in 2012-13. Five Rams — Dough Brooks, Torey Burston, Jordan Burgess, Mo Alie-Cox and Lewis — will be playing in their fourth NCAA tournament.
Cox, a redshirt senior forward, pointed to experience as the reason the Rams have been able to win games even when they've appeared to have no realistic chance.
"We have a very senior-heavy class," Cox said. "So we've been in a lot of close games over time. And this year we just have that never-give-up attitude, no matter if we're down 10, 15, 20, we have confidence in ourself that we can come back and right the things that were going wrong."
Saint Mary's coach Randy Bennett wasn't taking the Rams' late-game heroics for granted. His team has outscored opponents by an average of 15.5 points per game this season.
"You can get confidence when you play in those games," Bennett said. "You've been there. You're not nervous, you know you can win them. And they are [confidence]. I've seen it. They've been down 16 or 17 recently and they come back and get that game down to a two-point game an have a shot to win it.
"That's one thing we commented on as a coaching staff, these guys are hard to get rid of. They keep coming. And some is the style they play. They're going to keep coming at you defensively ad on the boards and in transition. And, obviously, they have some guys that are studs leaders that have high belief."
Twitter: @LWorthySports