By PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN — For VCU’s Melvin Johnson the challenge is to have a clear head.
If yesterday’s 5 of 8 performance from the floor including 4 of 7 behind the arc is any indicator, the junior guard might have met the challenge. And just in time for the Rams.
“Sometimes you get into your own head and start fighting yourself and nobody to answer but yourself,” Johnson said after VCU’s 63-57 victory over Fordham. “Just have to get it.”
His pull-up three with 2:31 to go all but secured VCU’s 63-57 over Fordham in the second round of the Atlantic 10 Championship at Barclays Center.
“I thought Mel did a good job, just once he got out there, playing free, not really worrying about the last play or the score or what might happen moving forward,” VCU’s Shake Smart commented.
Hitting 36 percent from behind the arc for the season, Johnson leads VCU with 74 makes from long range, but he endured a recent stretch making less than 27 percent of his shots behind the stripe. Take out the George Washington game on February 14, and Johnson hit 14 of 52 over the course of 11 games.
“We talk about that every day with all of our guys,” Smart said of playing with a clear mind. “To me that’s the foundational building block of playing basketball or doing anything at your best is being able to have a clear head.
We talk about it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to happen.
“Mel’s a great shooter when he goes out there with a clear head and just shoots the ball the right way and honors the process. I thought he did that today for the most part. There was one that he rushed when we got down a little bit, but other than that, they were really, really good looking shots, and lo and behold, a lot of them went in.”
The 6-3 guard draws plenty of attention from opposing defenses.
“The term we use is X’ing someone,” explained Fordham’s Tom Pecora. “That means we are going to stay close enough to him where he doesn’t get any looks. And Melvin is an automatic X, and we obviously didn’t do a great job of that because he’s 4 of 7 from three. And especially that one down the end there, where he was wide open and we were splitting back into our zone.”
VCU and Richmond move their rivalry north for the day. The Spiders knocked off VCU twice this season. Johnson shot a combined 3 of 10 in the two setbacks.
“I think both times, we just weren’t locked in on certain assignments,” Johnson said. “I felt as though we won the game at their place, and of course, Coach went over their players, said they might do this, get some offensive screens, get some layups in. That was just being on edge and not knowing their personnel.
For the most part, we just have to compete and lock in on their personnel.”
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