Epic collapse dooms VCU in loss at St. Bonaventure

[Natty]

The Rams looked well on their way to sitting atop the Atlantic 10 standings Wednesday night, taking a 15-point lead into the half at St. Bonaventure. Shortly after exiting the locker room however, the wheels completely fells off.
St. Bonaventure snuffed VCU’s massive lead in just five minutes and seven seconds of second half action, erasing the Ram’s 40-25 halftime lead by outscoring VCU 18-3 to start the second. From there on out it was just more of the same, with St. Bonaventure continuing to pile it on in one of the toughest halves of basketball VCU Ram fans can remember, outscoring the black and gold by 31 in the second half to hold serve at home in the 70-54 win.
The Rams finished the game an impressive 44% from distance by hit just 11 of their 40 attempts inside the three-point line, a brutal 27.5% clip. Just two Rams finished with double-digit scoring on the night, led by Bones Hyland’s team-high 16 points on 5-14 shooting and Vince Williams’ 11 who was 4-11 from the field...

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[bighornn]

This will take some research I doubt anyone is inspired to do .... but, only worse second half scores I can think of were way, way back when Rams sold their soul on the road .... might check games at Auburn, Western Kentucky and Oklahoma State in the '70s. Also the Auburn home game at Coliseum during the "walk-on season." VCU may have been outscored by 40 following
intermission.

 

[Natty]

Random note: but last year Shaka's Texas team was outscored by West Virginia by 32 in a half one game. Had to look that up to make myself feel better.

 

[theyaintwantit]

Natty - you (and Litos) are two of my favorite voices to hear from following a loss.

What (if anything) can you give us to provide a positive spin on this awful loss?

 

[ShoeSh1ne]

Natty - you (and Litos) are two of my favorite voices to hear from following a loss.

What (if anything) can you give us to provide a positive spin on this awful loss?

I'd say look at the first half. We were up 14 on the road against a very good team. After a few games of subpar play, that was good to see.

 

[HBK]

This will take some research I doubt anyone is inspired to do .... but, only worse second half scores I can think of were way, way back when Rams sold their soul on the road .... might check games at Auburn, Western Kentucky and Oklahoma State in the '70s. Also the Auburn home game at Coliseum during the "walk-on season." VCU may have been outscored by 40 following
intermission.

This 2nd half reminded me of that NCAA game against Michigan. We gave up lots and lots of dunks and layups. It was like a layup line.

 

[Natty]

Natty - you (and Litos) are two of my favorite voices to hear from following a loss.

What (if anything) can you give us to provide a positive spin on this awful loss?

I don't know if I'd call it a positive spin, but I think to get outscored by a conference foe by 31 when we're supposed to be a top program in this conference, forces some come-to-Jesus looks in the mirror. To me that look in the mirror is that hopefully we try and be a bit more versatile and not just in how many different players we can throw at a team. I'd love to see us mix up some of the defensive looks/schemes more when things aren't working there and I think Rhoades needs to steal some offensive material from other top coaches.

 

[Celticguy]

This 2nd half reminded me of that NCAA game against Michigan. We gave up lots and lots of dunks and layups. It was like a layup line.

As was attributed to URI coach Cox the key to beating us is presuming the guards. They stop getting it inside and self neutralize.
Why cant Rhoades learn that teams WILL make adjustments at the half and adjust us accordingly ?

 

[RESRam]

As was attributed to URI coach Cox the key to beating us is presuming the guards. They stop getting it inside and self neutralize.
Why cant Rhoades learn that teams WILL make adjustments at the half and adjust us accordingly ?

What does “presuming the guards” even mean???

 

[RESRam]

As was attributed to URI coach Cox the key to beating us is presuming the guards. They stop getting it inside and self neutralize.
Why cant Rhoades learn that teams WILL make adjustments at the half and adjust us accordingly ?

What does “presuming the guards” even mean?

 

[ssvcu90]

What does “presuming the guards” even mean?

Probably meant pressuring the guards.

 

[RESRam]

Probably meant pressuring the guards.

Then why didn’t he type that??? Don’t you read what you type before you hit “Done” and then “Post Reply”? It ain’t rocket surgery.

 

[ssvcu90]

Then why not type that??? Don’t you read what you type before you hit “Done” and then “Post Reply”? It ain’t rocket surgery.

Not sure.

 

[VCU Finance 2008]

Natty - you (and Litos) are two of my favorite voices to hear from following a loss.

What (if anything) can you give us to provide a positive spin on this awful loss?

Everything that happened in the first half other than the turnovers is all the positive spin you need. We were hitting shots, we were blocking shots, we were rebounding and following up most of our misses with offensive rebounds, and playing good defense. If we could be that team for 40 minutes we will win a lot of games in this conference and beyond. I don't think we have played a better half of basketball all season.

The second half was the opposite of that. I don't see any positive spin from anything that happened in the second half. 40 minutes of that wouldn't make the district playoffs in high school.

The reality is that we're going to be some combination of those two halves going forward, but tonight's game was a very stark contrast of how good or bad we can be.

 

[share the ball]

I think we have a tendency to forget that not all efforts by any team can be perfect especially younger teams - no arguing it was tale of two halfs
not to try and justify such a painful second half but Coach Schmidt said their second half of basketball vs VCU was the best half of basketball St Bonnies played in his many years in Oleans - sometimes we have to give credit to our opponent that sometimes has a better team than us and is playing exceptional -
one of the next steps for our development as a top A10 team is our youth need to learn to fight adversity when we get punched in the mouth by big runs by good teams - We need some mental toughness and resiliency (as well as some physical toughness)
I remain optimistically positive in this team and our coaches (even in our final 4 year we had some stinkers)
go rams