VCU came out flat in last night’s home contest against George Mason, only to see things go from first half bad to second half worse in the shocking 72-67 home defeat.
The black and gold’s top-25 defense surrendered 42 second half points against the Nation’s 176th-ranked offense to drop VCU to 17-7 on the season and a behind-the-eight ball 7-4 in conference play.
De’Riante Jenkins led the Rams with 16 efficient points with senior classmate Issac Vann adding an efficient 13 of his own. VCU’s other three starters however combined for just 12 points on 4-19 shooting and a 4-11 showing at the free throw stripe.
Freshman star, Bones Hyland, scored 11 points for the Rams and dished four assists to no turnovers. Hyland added a game-high four steals and with a late one-man 8-point scoring run, put the Rams within distance, only to see Mason hang on for the surprising road win.
It was just the Patriots third conference win of the season.
The loss drops the Rams into fifth place in the A-10 standings and staring down a Thursday night contest in Brooklyn a season after winning the A-10’s regular season title with just two conference losses. VCU can climb back into fourth with a win at Richmond this weekend, even if just temporarily, a game kenpom predicts VCU will lose as a part of a predicted three-game losing streak (Mason, Richmond, Dayton) that would begin to pull VCU toward the bottom half of the conference.
The Rams finish their season with five top-100 A-10 contests. VCU is currently 5-6 against top-100 foes this season, but have yet to pick up a top-100 road win yet this season.
Kenpom.com currently predicts an 11-7 fifth place A-10 finish for VCU.
The Rams fell to No.7 in A-10 offensive efficiency following last night’s showing and down to No.3 on the defensive side of the ball behind both Rhode Island and Richmond.
VCU ranks 47th by popular statistics website, down from their preseason starting ranking of 23rd nationally.
The loss adds a brutal “quad 4” L to VCU’s NCAA at-large resume as well, a resume that was previously straddling the line and at the moment most likely moves the Rams to the wrong side of this year’s NCAA tournament bubble. VCU will however, have a number of quality win opportunities remaining on their schedule, a commodity that ran scarce in last season’s down Atlantic 10 that featured just two top-100 opponents not named VCU.
