By PAUL GOTHAM
PITTSBURGH, PA — Trailing by six with less than eight minutes remaining in regulation, Will Wade and VCU Rams needed a spark. They found it in redshirt freshman Samir Doughty.
The 6-foot-4 guard drove baseline and drew contact for an and-one to stop a 6-0 Richmond spurt.
Wade reacted on the sideline.
“We have to drive the ball and get it in the paint,” Wade said after VCU 87-77 overtime victory in the Atlantic 10 semifinals against Richmond on Saturday. “We kept shooting all these mid-range jumpshots. We probably shot more mid-range jumpshots today than we’ve shot in the last month. We kept shooting all these terrible shots. If we just drive the ball in the paint, they will foul you or you will get a layup.”
Doughty followed with a catch-and-shoot the three pointer to knot the game at 57. Four minutes later, he gave VCU a 66-64 edge with a drive along the right side of the lane.
“He just put his head down and drove the ball in there,” Wade said. “We talk about feeding the post a lot, but you can drive it in there, too. I mean, Samir is good driving that thing in there.”
The Philadelphia, PA native grabbed a loose ball in the lane and scored in overtime to give VCU a 75-71 advantage. He converted a pair of free throws with 1:25 to go in overtime to ice the game as the Rams outlasted Richmond, 87-77.
“He’s a driver more than a shooter,” Wade explained. “He’ll tell you that. He got mad at me when I was making him shoot all these shots all off-season. He said, ‘I’m not a shooter, you’re not going to make me into a shooter.’
“I said, ‘Well, you’ve going to have to shoot because you’re not going to be able to drive. This isn’t high school basketball. People will play way off of you.’ His instincts are to drive it. I almost have to yell at him to shoot it when we want him to shoot. I thought the corner three to tie it was a big one, as well. He played at a high level for us.”
Doughty finished with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor including two of three behind the arc.
“He’s a great player, he’s a great scorer,” teammate JeQuan Lewis said. “We’re going to need that from him. He’s able to do that — he’s capable of doing that every game, if he just comes out, play his game. He’s a great driver, getting to the rim and finishing. He’s great at rebounding his own misses. He’s scrappy, you know, and if Samir keeps playing like, we’re going to do good things.”
“He went on a 6-0 run by himself when we got down six,” Wade noted. “Samir made many huge contributions for us. Really efficient game for him today.”
VCU will play Rhode Island in Sunday’s championship game. A 12:30 pm tipoff is scheduled. The teams met once this year with Rhode Island winning 69-59.
VCU is 12-3 all-time at the Atlantic 10 championship and won the 2015 championship. The Rams are making their fifth straight appearance in the A-10 title game.
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