By Paul Gotham
BROOKLYN — For what seemed like more than a couple of fleeting moments, the improbable almost happened Thursday afternoon.
Jon Severe caught the defense in a switch on a ball screen and hit a three from the top. Antwoine Anderson swiped a pass and led Mandell Thomas for a layup in the open court. Christian Sengfelder grabbed his own miss and finished. Bryan Smith went end-to-end before using a Euro step to score. Then Severe landed a heat check three which left his defender laughing.
The No. 12-seeded Fordham looked destined to knock off No. 5-seed VCU.
Then reality met illusion.
Treveon Graham and Melvin Johnson scored six of their combined 38 points in the game’s closing moments as VCU defeated Fordham 63-57 and advanced to the quarter-finals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
Johnson’s three pointer gave VCU its largest lead of the game at 58-52 with 2:31 left in the game.
“I was ready to play,” Johnson. “We knew how dangerous they were offensively. I think just locking in more on the defensive end, science of the game.”
The sophomore guard who hasn’t topped double figures in six of his last outings finished with 16 on 5 of 8 shooting including 4 of 7 from long range.
“Sometimes you get into your own head and start fighting yourself and nobody to answer but yourself,” Johnson added. “Just have to get it…You can’t miss a shot you never take, so I’m going to try to be as aggressive as I can possibly be.”
Severe answered for Fordham with a long three-pointer over Johnson late in the shot clock after numerous successful close outs by the VCU defense on the play.
“That was a deep shot,” Johnson commented. “He’s a tough guard and he can really score the ball…He doesn’t really care where he is. That was definitely my bad. And when you guard a player like that, you definitely have to know personnel.”
Graham pushed the advantage back to five when he grabbed an offensive rebound and scored. The senior forward converted one of two free throws with 30 seconds remaining, and VCU had all but sealed the victory.
“I just wanted to be aggressive, came out aggressive,” Graham stated. “And there was a point where I wasn’t as aggressive as Melvin and Doug (teammate Brooks) and everybody on the team told me to stay aggressive. Toward the end of the game, I just tried to attack the glass and do what I need to do for the team.”
The game was as much about those who did not play as those who did. Fordham played without Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year, Eric Paschall, and VCU without Defensive Player of the Year, Briante Weber.
Paschall played just sparingly the night before as Fordham eliminated George Mason. The 6-6 guard, who sat out the two games prior to the opening win, averaged 15.9 points and 5.5 rebounds this season.
Weber suffered a season-ending ACL injury finished his college career with 374 steals – 12 away from being the all-time NCAA leader.
Fordham led for almost seven minutes of the first half 12:26 of the entire game. The contest was tied for 9:10.
“We played and we competed, and I think a couple of the guys were gassed,” Fordham’s head coach Tom Pecora said. “Their veterans really stepped up and did a good job.”
Fordham held VCU to 30.5 percent (18 of 59) from the floor, but VCU grabbed 20 offensive and converted that into an 18-12 advantage in second-chance points.
“You know, if you said to me, hey, you’re going to hold VCU to 30 percent from the floor and you’re only going to have 16 turnovers, I would say, ‘we’re going to win the basketball game,'” Pecora noted. “But the difference maker was them on the boards.”
Severe led Fordham with 14. Thomas added 12. Smith had 11 and Manny Suarez 13.
Fordham, which lost it first nine conference games, returns four starters and has seven freshmen on the roster.
“When you’re building a program, there are stages of winning,” Pecora said. “One of the things that we did this year that we’ve never done, and I don’t think it’s been done for quite a while at Rose Hill is we didn’t get blown out of many games in the A‑10. We lost a lot of games that we were in right down to the nitty‑gritty.”
VCU advances to play No.4-seed Richmond on Friday.
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