VCU edges Drexel, 59-56, to win CAA title
VCU built a big first-half lead behind its trademark pressure defense , and Troy Daniels’ clutch free throws in the final minute allowed the second-seeded Rams to hang on for a 59-56 victory over #1 seed Drexel in the 2012 Virginia 529 CAA Men’s Basketball Championship game. The game was played before a sellout crowd of 11,200 at the Richmond Coliseum.
VCU (28-6), which captured its fifth CAA championship overall and first since 2009, returns to the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in the last six seasons a year after making a magical run to the Final Four. Read more
Hot-starting VCU holds off late Mason rally in CAA semis
Second-seeded VCU started fast and held on late to earn its seventh trip in the last 11 years to the title game of Virginia 529 CAA Men’s Basketball Championship with a 74-64 win over No. 3 seed George Mason on Sunday afternoon at the Richmond Coliseum.
The Rams scored the first 22 points of the game in route to a first-half lead as large as 28 points, but George Mason closed to within six points late in the second half before VCU held on to advance to Monday night’s championship game against top-seeded Drexel. Read more
VCU pulls away from JMU, 65-45
VCU limited James Madison to four points in the final 12 minutes of the game, pulling away from a 42-41 lead to record a 65-45 victory in a Colonial Athletic Association men’s basketball game Thursday evening at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.
VCU improved to 12-5 overall and 3-2 in the CAA while JMU dropped its fourth straight league contest to fall to 8-8 overall and 1-4 in the conference.
Reserve guard Treveon Graham led all players with 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting for VCU. Bradford Burgess had a double-double with 10 points and 12 boards while Juvonte Reddic had a near double-double with nine points and 11 boards, though the duo combined for 4-for-21 shooting from the floor. Darius Theus had 12 points and five boards. Read more
JMU women drop VCU, 64-43
James Madison ran its home winning streak to 17 games with a 64-43 victory over Virginia Commonwealth in Colonial Athletic Association women’s basketball team Thursday night at the JMU Convocation Center.
The Dukes improved to 10-3 overall and evened their league record at 1-1, while VCU dropped to 8-5 and 1-1 in CAA play.
VCU, which shot only 24 percent (15-63) from the field, had its lowest-scoring game since a 42-37 loss at Delaware on Feb. 7, 2008.
Three Dukes scored in double figures, led by redshirt junior guard Jasmine Gill (Greensboro, N.C./Page) with 15. Redshirt senior forward Lauren Whitehurst (Chesapeake, Va./Indian River) added 11 points along with a team-high seven rebounds, and sophomore guard Kirby Burkholder (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) finished with 11 points, seven rebounds, six assists and five steals. Read more
Sweet 16: Richmond 2, Big East 2
You read that right. Our state’s capital city has all of two NCAA teams, both of which made the NCAA Tournament field of 68, and both of which fought their way into the Sweet 16 with a combined record of 5-0.
Meanwhile, the entirety of the Big East, a 16-team superconference stretching from the Northeast practically into the Southern Hemisphere, which had a record 11 teams make the tourney field, will have, like the City of Richmond, two teams still alive in the Sweet 16 later this week.
(And those came from second-round matchups featuring a pair of Big East teams of which the winner had to be from the Big East. Otherwise …)
That it’s not out of the realm of the average basketball fan’s imagination that neither of the teams from Richmond – the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth – could have even been in the NCAAs to begin with is what makes March Madness so interesting.
UR, I thought, was a lock with its 24-win regular season in the respected Atlantic 10, but even after winning the A-10 conference tournament the Spiders earned just a #12 seed, an indication that the poo-bahs had Richmond pegged for another postseason destination without the automatic bid.
VCU, meanwhile, was not even part of the conversation heading into Selection Sunday. After limping down the stretch of the 2010-2011 season to a fourth-place finish in the CAA, the Rams seemed destined for the NIT before hearing their names called for the inaugural First Four, a set of play-in games featuring the final four at-large teams to get berths into the NCAA field.
VCU dominated Southern Cal from the Pac 10 in the first round, then beat Georgetown from the Big East on Friday night to earn a matchup with the Southwest Region’s third seed, Purdue of the Big 10. The Rams, the #11 seed, played like they were the big boys in a convincing 94-76 win that lands them in San Antonio for a 9:55 p.m. Friday tipoff.
Playing the game before them: Richmond, which upset fifth-seeded Vanderbilt on Thursday and then decimated Morehead State on Saturday.
VCU gets another Cinderella in its Sweet 16 matchup in the form of #10 seed Florida State of the ACC, which was slighted on Selection Sunday with just four bids, but has a tournament-high three teams left in the field after the first weekend.
Richmond’s test will be the toughest of the two teams from the capital city to date – top-seed Kansas.
Here’s to our Cinderellas not realizing it’s close to midnight a little while longer, and having the champion of the Southwest also be the city champs of Richmond for 2010-2011.
Tech’s bubble bursts again: Mason, VCU get at-large bids, UR, ODU, Hampton earn automatics
It’s a rite of Selection Sunday that Virginia Tech fans could do without.
The Hokies, with a 21-11 record, 11 wins in the ACC, two wins over NCAA Tourney participant Florida State, a win over #1 West Region seed Duke two weeks ago, were once again left out of the NCAA field.
George Mason (26-6) and VCU (23-11) from the CAA both got at-large bids, joining tournament champion Old Dominion (27-6), marking the first time the Colonial got two at-large bids into the tournament field.
Richmond (27-7), which won the Atlantic 10′s automatic bid, and Hampton (24-8), champs of the MEAC, also earned bids.
Hampton, the #16 seed in the West, will take on Duke (30-4) in its NCAA opener. Richmond, the #12 seed in the Southwest, takes on #5 seed Vanderbilt (23-10).
ODU, the #9 seed in the Southeast, opens with #8 Butler (22-9). VCU plays Southern Cal (19-14) in a play-in game for the #11 seed in the Southwest Region. Mason, the #8 seed in the East, takes on #9 seed Villanova (21-11).
The ACC landed four teams in the NCAA field – Duke, Florida State (#10 seed in the Southwest), North Carolina (#2 seed in the East) and Clemson (which faces Alabama-Birmingham in a play-in game for the #12 seed in the East).
Virginia Tech seemed to have played its way into the field as a fifth ACC participant with its 64-60 win over then-#1 Duke on Feb. 26 and then posting two wins in this week’s ACC Tournament, including a 52-51 win on Friday over Florida State in the ACC quarterfinals.
The win gave Tech a season sweep of Florida State. Tech also beat another bubble team that was given an NCAA bid, Penn State (19-14, the #10 seed in the West Region).
Losses in the final week of the regular season to Boston College and Clemson and a pair of losses to 16-15 Virginia were key blemishes on the Hokies’ resume, as was a relatively weak strength of schedule (74th among the 345 teams in Division I).
Tech's bubble bursts again: Mason, VCU get at-large bids, UR, ODU, Hampton earn automatics
Posted by afp on March 13, 2011 · 5 Comments
The Hokies, with a 21-11 record, 11 wins in the ACC, two wins over NCAA Tourney participant Florida State, a win over #1 West Region seed Duke two weeks ago, were once again left out of the NCAA field.
George Mason (26-6) and VCU (23-11) from the CAA both got at-large bids, joining tournament champion Old Dominion (27-6), marking the first time the Colonial got two at-large bids into the tournament field. Read more
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