North Carolina led VCU by 19 with 14:58 to go, by 14 with 6:13 to go, but the Heels ran out of gas, entirely because head coach Hubert Davis, who might not be long for the job, dramatically shortened his bench.
His Heels, running on fumes, were outscored 19-5 in the final six minutes and change as the Rams forced overtime, and VCU went on to the 82-78 win against a UNC team depleted both by injury and coach’s decisions.
“Because that was my decision,” was the way Davis tersely answered a reporter who asked him why he had gone with a six-man rotation in the second half.
He can get away with being snippy at a reporter making $40,000 a year; not sure that will work when he’s having to answer to the boosters who pay the much bigger bills for Carolina Basketball.
UNC (24-9) finished its season with three straight losses, and a 5-5 mark after their, at the time, season-defining win over Duke on Feb. 7.
Two nights later, in a loss at Miami, star freshman Caleb Wilson went down with a fractured left wrist, and just as he was about to return for the regular-season finale at Duke, he broke his right thumb on a dunk in a practice drill, ending his season.
Rather than give more minutes to former four-star recruit Zayden High, who did put in three double-digit outings in Wilson’s absence before being glued to the bench down the stretch, Davis decided to ride his horses, and ride them hard – Seth Trimble played 43 minutes on Thursday night; seven-footer Henri Veesaar got 42 minutes; Derek Dixon went 41.
The trio combined for 52 points on 18-of-41 shooting (7-of-17 3FG, 9-of-16 FT).
Their numbers in the final six minutes of regulation and the five minutes of OT: eight points, on 2-of-10 shooting from the floor, 0-of-5 from three, 4-of-6 at the line.
First-year VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr. said his sideline noticed the fatigue from the Carolina side.
“The last four minutes, we said that. I think it was five at that point in time. We’re kind of built for that,” said Martelli, noting that after “a couple of shots that went short, I said, we’ve got them right here. If we can just make a couple more shots, we’re going to have a shot.”
VCU (28-7) finished regulation on a 19-5 run, and held the Heels without a make from the floor in the OT.
That all of this was going on after the Carolina side spent the better part of the first 30 minutes of the game puffing their chests at VCU’s pregame talk about not being overly concerned about facing the UNC “brand” is all the more rich.
ICYMI
“I was talking to the big fella the whole game. It kind of got me mad,” said Lazar Djokovic, who had 15 points and five boards in 38 minutes for VCU, going one-on-one against Veesaar, a projected first-round pick.
“Hit those back-to-back threes, and from then on, we smelled the blood. We see the look in their faces, and from then on, we just went on a run.”
“They know it now. I think they’ve been knew it,” said guard Terrence Hill, who made himself some money tonight – 34 points on 13-of-23 shooting (7-of-10 3FG), five assists. “VCU has a great history behind us, and we want to represent it as much as possible. This is our back-to-back year coming to the NCAA Tournament. One of my goals this year was not to be a first-round exit. I wanted to come in with that mindset and leave the VCU history on.
“It don’t matter who we play, UNC, it don’t matter. Blue bloods, it don’t matter, we got the same mindset every game,” Hill said.
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Chris Graham
