By PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN — The distance between the two campuses is 12 miles. The play on the court this season has been a fraction of that.
Doug Brooks capped a furious rally as the No. 5-seed Virginia Commonwealth Rams defeated the No. 4-seed Richmond Spiders, 70-67 in the Atlantic 10 quarter-finals at the Barclays Center, Friday.
Brooks took a feed from Melvin Johnson and nailed a three-pointer from the left corner with 1:37 remaining in the game.
“I saw we were outnumbered,” Johnson said. “I saw (Richmond’s) Deion Taylor coming and I just [went] one more pass; I had a lot of trust in Doug.”
The shot erased an eight-point deficit as the Rams advanced to Saturday’s semi-final against No. 1-seed Davidson.
Mo Alie-Cox started the sequence underneath when he grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked a pass to Johnson near the top of the key. Taylor tipped the pass, and Johnson had to go to the air to corral it.
“I pat myself on the back for that one honestly,” Johnson said with a smile. “I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I think I came a long way because I was a knucklehead. With that offensive rebound, (in the past) I would have tried to hit a home run and shoot it myself.”
Coming off a 16-point performance the previous day, Johnson finished with a team-high 23 points off the bench on 7 of 14 shooting including 5 of 9 behind the arc.
“Mo is one of my favorite players that I’ve ever coached,” VCU’s Shaka Smart said. “His future is really, really bright as a player. Unfortunately he’s really hard on himself. So if a play doesn’t go his way, he gets so upset with himself.
With the win, VCU avenged a pair of regular season losses. Richmond defeated VCU, 67-63 in double overtime on February 25 and 70-67 to close conference play.
“I have to take my hat off to Richmond,” Smart said. “We played them three times obviously this year. I think they are a terrific basketball team.”
Richmond looked poised to make it three straight. With senior Kendall Anthony leading the way, the Spiders outscored VCU 14-5 in the opening eight minutes of the second stanza.
The first team all-conference performer finished the day with a game-high 26 points on 12 of 16 shooting including connecting on both his attempts behind the arc.
“Kendall Anthony is one of the best competitors I’ve ever been around,” Smart added. “I’ve been coaching for 16 years, and he’s terrific. I’m just really glad that we don’t have to play against him ever again because this is the ninth time we’ve played him, and I think eight out of the nine times, he’s played phenomenal.”
For Chris Mooney and the Spiders it was a frustrating end to a six-game winning streak. The Spiders had the advantage in the paint (48-18), points off turnovers (15-12) and fast break points (19-2).
“I thought it was a great game, really well played, highly‑contested game,” Mooney said. “Wish we would have been able to do a little bit more.”
VCU’s bench outscored their counterparts 30-7 and the Rams had a 13-6 advantage on second-chance points. VCU (16 of 19) outscored Richmond (0 of 5) by 16 at the free throw line.
“Yeah, we had a big advantage in a lot of the important statistical categories,” Mooney said. “Statistics can be a little bit misleading. They don’t always tell the whole story…They made 16 free throws; we didn’t make any. That obviously is one big advantage that they had in their statistical line.”
Terry Allen scored 12 for Richmond. T.J. Cline added 14.
JeQuan netted 10 for VCU.
Anthony handed out a game-high six assists.
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