As the 2010-11 men’s basketball season approached, the number of basketball fans who didn’t know what the acronym VCU stood for wasn’t zero.
And Shaka Smart? Who?
Throughout November, December, January and February of that season, the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams, under coach Smart, were so anonymous there were no championship odds posted for them.
A preseason pick to finish third in the not exactly a powerhouse Colonial Athletic Association, VCU lost games to Georgia State, Northeastern and Drexel before making it to the conference final, where it lost to Old Dominion, best known as the alma mater of women’s great Nancy Lieberman.
Normally, that would have been the end of the Rams’ five minutes of moderate fame, but March Madness in 2011 was the debut of the First Four, and VCU was awarded one of those berths, possibly on the strength of regular season wins over Winthrop and Virginia Military Institute.
“No Final Four team in history has generated more controversy by its mere inclusion in the tournament field than Virginia Commonwealth,” said Bleacher Report of a squad that didn’t even get together to watch the tournament selection show.
Oddsmakers were contemptuous and made VCU +50000 as the tournament began, while first-round opponent USC was +20000.
Let The Madness Begin
The Rams began the tournament with what SB Nation called “a solid 59-46 win over USC, in a game where the Trojans were out-played and out-coached, and eventually, the Trojans gave up, tossing in the towel in the last two minutes.”
VCU did two things well: shoot threes and defend their asses off.
The win over another First Four team didn’t make them tournament darlings, but convincing wins over sixth-seeded Georgetown and third-seeded Purdue, both by 18 points, did.
After the Rams handled Purdue, ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski wrote an apology to the selection committee.
“Not only do the Rams belong, but if they keep kneecapping higher seeds in this NCAA tournament -- like they did against late, great Purdue on Sunday evening at the United Center -- they could win this whole thing.
Whole thing, as in national championship.
You think we're kidding? Ask the third-seeded Boilermakers, who were stuffed down the tournament garbage disposal by a VCU team that, in essence, began the postseason as a No. 17 seed.”
These wins impressed not only sportswriters, but also oddsmakers.
Somewhat.
VCU went from +50000 to +30000 for rounds one and two, then to +10000 for the Sweet Sixteen, by a significant margin the highest odds among the teams left, though Richmond, Marquette and Arizona were all +8000.
Eventual winner Connecticut was +1000 and future Rams victim Kansas +300.
Are The Rams For Real?
The easy wins ended against Florida State, with VCU squeaking by 72-71 in overtime, the victory sealed by a blocked shot at the buzzer.
The Seminoles dominated the glass, but VCU was better from long distance, especially Brandon Rozell, who made a trio of threes in less than two minutes, and Bradford Burgess, who sank six threes before making the game-winning layup in overtime.
One more upset to make it to Final Four site Houston, an easy drive from San Antonio, where the Rams played their Sweet Sixteen games, and the obstacle was Kansas, a top seed and the owners of a record of 35-2.
The Jayhawks had become the favorites to the win the whole thing, at +160, while VCU had earned enough respect to sit at +2200.
Kansas was so good that the Rams only beat them by ten, 71-61.
Defence and three-point percentage told the tale. Kansas was 2-for-21 from long range, while VCU was 12-for-25 and held the Jayhawks to their lowest point total of the season, 21 points below their per game average.
Wrote Nate Silver on fivethirtyeight.com, “In a competition famous for its upsets, the Rams having made it to Houston may be the most unlikely occurrence in the history of the tournament. Before the tournament began, we had Virginia Commonwealth with just a 12-in-10,000 chance of reaching the Final Four, making the Rams 820-to-1 underdogs.”
Anyone who hadn’t already become enamored of VCU by this point did so when the story came out that their coaches were doing hustle drills at practice in Houston.
From the notebook of ESPN’s Pat Forde:
“Another reason to love VCU: coaches just did hustle drill, take charge, dive for loose ball, make leaping sideline save. Players go wild. Shaka included. Asst Mike Jones bleeding from elbow. He totally laid out for loose ball.”
But VCU’s semifinal opponent was Butler, the plucky Bulldogs having won their tournament games by two, one, seven and three points, good enough for them to be installed at +350, while VCU went into the matchup at +500.
(Insert glass slipper cliché of your choice here).
“Virginia Commonwealth's improbable romp to the Final Four came to an end Saturday, with the Rams falling to Butler, a team with an equal claim on the Cinderella moniker but a decisive edge in big-time basketball experience,” reported the Washington Post.
“Behind 24 points from junior guard Shelvin Mack, Butler tamed VCU, 70-62, to earn its second consecutive berth in the NCAA championship game.
The Bulldogs, who lost to Duke in last year’s final, won Saturday by taking away what had been VCU’s biggest weapon in the NCAA tournament, its three-point shot, and clobbering the Rams on the boards — creating second and third cracks at the basket through a 48-32 rebounding edge, including a 16-6 advantage on the offensive boards.”
Butler went on to lose to UConn in the championship game.
2011 was the first of seven consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament for Virginia Commonwealth.
Five years into that streak, Shaka Smart took the head coaching job at the University of Texas, a move that saw his salary increase from $150,000 to $2.8 million.
