Thus, the hard-nosed strategy St. Bonaventure used to defeat VCU, 74-65, in yesterday's Atlantic 10 championship game was hardly surprising. Right from the start it was obvious the Bonnies were committed to making life as hard for Bones Hyland, the conference's Player of the Year, as the rules would allow.
The way Bonnies head coach, Mark Schmidt, set it up, if his veteran team was going to lose to the Rams, it would not be because VCU's star player poured in a bunch of 3-pointers in the first half, to set a tone and establish a working margin. So the Bonnies smothered and even roughed up Bones as much as they could get by with. They also managed to lure him into first-half foul trouble.
Thus, Bones was stifled and held to zero points in the first half. The Rams head coach, Mike Rhoades, surely knows his relatively young team got schooled by, Schmidt, the conference's savvy Coach of the Year. It happens.
From here on the Rams can only
expect a lot more of this sort of thing. Rhoades and his staff must get their players mentally ready for their next opponent, Oregon, to try to intimidate VCU with similar tactics They should expect an all-out plan to take Bones out
of the game, using any and all means allowed. That will put extra pressure on freshman point guard, Ace Baldwin, to be steady and yet aggressive.
So, against the Ducks on Saturday night (tipoff at 9:57 p.m.; TV broadcast on TNT), the Rams fate may rest on Bones setting a new career-high for assists, because he makes clever passes when he is double-teamed. If his teammates Vince Williams and Jamir Watkins both score career highs for points, I like VCU's chance to advance.
With the No. 7 seeded Ducks now a 6-point betting favorite, if the No. 10 seeded Rams can bear down to force turnovers aplenty and also block out effectively, to limit the Ducks to one shot per possession, an upset will get even more likely.
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