VCU losing starting guard Nyk Lewis in the first minute wasn’t why the Rams lost to #3 seed Illinois on Saturday, but it sure didn’t help.
“I mean, Nyk is a warrior, he’s a winner. He’s all those things. It certainly took the wind out of our sails to start,” said VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr., whose first season at the helm came to an end in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament.
Lewis averaged 8.7 points and 4.5 rebounds per game this season, but in the last two – the A-10 Tournament final win over Dayton, and the first-round NCAA Tournament upset of North Carolina, he’d averaged 16.5 points, shooting 10-of-18 from the floor, and 4-of-7 from three.
Illinois (26-8) jumped out to a 20-8 lead nine minutes in, but VCU (28-8) would get things together, and a 20-6 run over the next eight minutes put them ahead, 28-26, after a mini-flurry by Terrence Hill – a three with 3:57 to go that tied the score, and a short jumper that gave the Rams the brief lead.
The Illini closed the half on a 9-0 run to go into the break up 35-28, then put the game on ice with a 15-4 run in the opening seven minutes of the second half, which put VCU into a 50-32 hole.
Another Hill mini-flurry – a layup and a three after a steal in the backcourt – would get the deficit down to 13 with 12:11 to go, but that was as close as it would get.
A sad end for a solid first season for Martelli, who replaced Ryan Odom, now at Virginia, and led the VCU program to its first NCAA Tournament win in a decade.
“The end is always hard, and you struggle to come up with what to say. I told these guys in the locker room the two words that kept kind of bouncing around in my mind were ‘pride’ and ‘gratitude,’ Martelli said.
“All these guys took a chance. Got the job 51 weeks ago today, and was selling everybody a vision, all of them a vision of what could be. They all took that chance. They came along for the ride, and they brought us along for the ride,” Martelli said.
Hill finished with 17 points (7-of-16 FG, 3-of-9 3FG) and seven rebounds for VCU, which shot 7-of-32 (21.9 percent) from three on the day.
Hill is a sophomore, two years of eligibility remaining, and just sayin’, he would look really good in orange and blue next winter.
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Chris Graham
