If you know what to expect heading into the Atlantic 10 conference season, then make sure that I can get the lottery numbers from you if we ever meet. That conference motto should be to expect the unexpected, and we all saw that last year when Duquesne won the league and then won a game in the NCAA Tournament. This year all the talk was about Dayton and Saint Louis being the teams to beat. It was George Mason and VCU. Those teams shared the title and the VCU Rams won the conference tournament to secure the autobid into the NCAA Tournament.
VCU is making its 20th appearance in the NCAA Tournament. This year will be their first under current head coach Ryan Odom and their first since 2022-2023 when Mike Rhoades was the coach. There was a time when Shaka Smart had the Rams in the NCAA Tournament every year. Coach Smart was able to get them to a Final Four and honestly got the wheels in motion for what is now a top-tier program in the country.
The Rams earned an 11 seed this year. The last time that VCU was an 11 seed in the NCAA tournament they made the Final Four. That will be a tall order this year, but the Rams are a confident group and are one of the better 11 seeds the tournament has seen in a while. Here are some reasons the Rams can win a game in the NCAA Tournament.
Defense
This is always something you can write about VCU. This version of the Rams doesn’t run the Havoc style that coach Smart, Will Wade, and Mike Rhoades all ran and made famous at VCU, but the defense is bordering on elite. The Rams take away everything on defense and force teams to take contested jump shots at the end of the shot clock. VCU runs everyone off the three-point line and then when the teams try to pick and roll to get an easy look at the basket, they will utilize drop coverage to make it hard for teams to get an easy look at the basket.
The one thing that the Rams do that head coach Ryan Odom had not done in the past is the full-court press; they are pressing and are very aggressive for steals out of it. As a result of this new defense, VCU is holding opponents to under 40% shooting, under 44% shooting from inside the three-point line, and is in the top 10 in total blocks and the top 50 in total steals. They are playing defense at a high level this year, and that will need to continue if they want to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
Threes
VCU doesn’t give up threes on defense; the offensive end is a completely different story. The Rams are one of the most three-point shooting teams in the country at least by volume. It is not surprising that the Rams shoot a lot of threes, given that their coach is known for having offenses that shoot a ton of threes. VCU may only be making 33% of their threes, but given they are taking an average of 10 more threes than their opponents shoot, it is a huge advantage. The 322 total threes that VCU has made this year is good for 33rd in the country. VCU has only given up 197 makes from the three-point line. So even with their lower percentage, the Rams are going to outshoot their opponents in both makes and by volume. If the volume were lower VCU would likely have a lot better shooting percentage.
Experience
There is experience, and then there is what VCU has. The top 5 rotation players for the Rams are all 5th-year Seniors who have all played a ton of basketball. Every single one of those players has been a multiyear starter and was a star at one of their former stops. 4 out of the five players have played in the NCAA tournament before, and all of them come from winning programs. The wise Seth Greenberg likes to say, "Get old and stay old." Older players have seen just about everything in college. Their heart rates stay the same and they often don’t panic, coaches trust them to make the right play, and all of them lead. Experience matters in single-elimination tournaments, and when you have one of the country's oldest rosters, it will matter.
The Rams are dangerous, and their opponent is going to have to find a way to get to the basket and score points without relying too much on the three-point line. VCU is a team that can make a run based on the way they play and the experience that they have.