BY PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN — When first-year VCU head coach Will Wade talks about his team, he points to the need for his players to “attack downhill” and “get to the front of the rim.”
VCU tilted the floor with 4:48 to go in the first half of Saturday’s Atlantic 10 semi-final.
Six different Rams tallied, and VCU outscored Davidson 16-6 going into the locker room as part of an overall decisive 32-14 run en route to a 76-54 victory.
“Really, really proud of our guys,” Wade said. “We guarded well. We played very, very well… Really proud of just everybody. Everybody stepped up.”
Jordan Burgess sparked VCU with a 3-pointer late in the first stanza. One day after hitting just 1-of-16 attempts from behind the arc, VCU connected on nine of their final 20 shots from long range, Saturday.
Korey Billbury netted a team-high 17 hitting 7-of-15 including 3-of-5 from 3-point range.
“He stepped up today big time,” Wade said of the graduate transfer from Oral Roberts. “When we had some of those other guys out there, he was the one making shots to keep that lead at a point where we could rest a lot of guys, which I thought was critical.
“This stuff is all new to KB, so he toiled around in South Dakota right now in the quarterfinals of the Summit League or something so this is a new deal for him.”
JeQuan Lewis hit a three and fed Mo Alie-Cox in transition for a dunk as the Rams opened a 21-point advantage coming out of the locker room.
“Yesterday, it took us four or five minutes to get into the flow of the game and assert our will,” Wade noted. “Today, we did it from the start. We got a turkey to start the game, three straight stops to start the game, and we were able to get off to a 6-0 lead, and didn’t really look back from there…We had a pretty good working margin most of the game, and then we really put the pedal to the metal there at the start of the second half and got us the distance that we needed.”
At the same time, VCU’s defense held Davidson more than 25 points under their season average while limiting the Wildcats to just 5-of-23 (21.7 percent) from behind the 3-point arc. Jack Gibbs, a top-ten scorer nationally netting 24.2 a game, finished with four points on 2-of-13 shooting.
Wade credited his team’s ability to take away Davidson’s ball reversal.
“The one thing we did today, we felt like we needed to kind of spice it up even though we’ve beaten them twice, so we downed Gibbs on the left side where he’s much less efficient,” Wade stated . “They couldn’t get to the second and third sides and those second and third screeners coming off, which helped. They were basically on one side and that was one adjustment that we made.
“here was no way they could get to it because they were clogged on some of their other actions.”
After dropping back-to-back games in early February, VCU advances to its fourth A-10 final in as many years.
“I knew we were going to play well this week,” Wade commented. “I said on the radio before our first game, I said, if we lose, we’re just getting beat by a better team against UMass yesterday. We beat UMass pretty handily. We beat these guys pretty handily. We’ve prepared well, and we’re playing well.”
For Davidson playing their third game in as many days, it was a bitter dose. Less than 16 hours after rallying from 12 down to defeat St. Bonaventure in overtime, the Wildcats were back out on the court.
“It was kind of a perfect storm,” Davidson head coach Bob McKillop said. “A 9:00 game on Thursday night, a 9:00 game on Friday night, and overtime, and then an afternoon game against a team that is in you every second of the possession. Just not the greatest recipe for being able to run your stuff, and they prevented us from running our stuff…But they deserved this victory. They certainly made it uncomfortable for us to run offense.”
VCU leading scorer, Melvin Johnson, left the court injured late in Friday’s 85-70 win over UMass. Johnson looked hobbled early in Saturday’s contest, but recovered and score nine points and handed out two assists.
“He was a little limited at the start and I took him out,” Wade stated. “Once he got into the flow he was good…The ankle is part of the issue, but it’s more of a heel issue than an ankle issue. I think he’ll be fine. He’ll be ready to go tomorrow. We’re all hands on deck tomorrow, whoever we need, whatever we need. We’ve just got to see if we can find a way to make it happen.”
VCU scored 30 points in the paint and 30 from behind the arc. The Rams also tallied a dozen off turnovers and off second-chance points.
Saturday’s two games set a single session A-1o tournament record with 10,439 in attendance.
VCU takes on Saint Joseph’s in Sunday’s championship. A 12:30 tipoff is scheduled.
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