ODU’s head coach Blaine Taylor

On Saturday afternoon, the VCU Rams out-rebounded and generally out-hustled their arch rivals, the Old Dominion Monarchs. With snow still falling on the Fan District, inside the Siegel Center the Rams’ gritty effort was a crowd-pleaser to most of the 7,556 who slogged through the brutal weather to attend the game: VCU 70, ODU 58.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of our guys today, especially the way we locked down defensively,” said Shaka Smart, VCU’s head coach. “ODU is one of the best defensive teams in the country and we challenged our guys to be even better today and that’s exactly what we were able to do.”

The Rams leading scorer this season, junior forward/center Larry Sanders, didn’t start the game. In his place senior forward Kirill Pishchalnikov made his first start of the season. The Russian who was a starter earlier in his career at VCU responded by scoring the Rams first six points and 14 in the game. He also grabbed five rebounds in his 21 minutes of play.

“Kirill was tremendous for us,” Smart told those assembled in the media room. “He’s such a great kid and he’s been outstanding all year. At times, he saw his minutes decreasing, but he continued to bring the same energy and dedication to practice and it’s paid off. He really appreciates what it means to be a part of this program.”

Smart stiff-armed questions about Sanders’ benching. He twice smiled and said, “It was a decision I made going into the game.” He didn’t elaborate.

Sophomore guard/forward Bradford Burgess led all scorers with 16 points. He added six rebounds and three steals. Junior point guard Joey Rodriguez scored nine points and handled the ball efficiently; he dished for eight assists. Sanders scored 14 points, grabbed 12 boards and blocked two shots in 30 minutes on the floor.

Sanders called it: “A big momentum boost … this is a big win for us and we just have to stay focused, continue to work hard and get better every day.”

Averaging an eye-popping plus-8.8 per game, ODU came onto the Rams home court ranked fifth in the nation in out-rebounding its opponents. But VCU won the battle of the boards 39-37.

“We work on a technique we called gang rebounding. It’s basically that all five players hit the boards and if one guy isn’t going to get the rebound, he’s going to clear the way for one of his teammates to grab it,” Smart said. “That’s exactly what we were able to do tonight.”

VCU now leads, 42-38, in the series with ODU that began in 1969.

Kent Bazemore was the Monarch’s top scorer with 12 points; Frank Hassell scored 10 points.

Sitting beside a rather glum Darius James (eight points and three turnovers), he was nursing a leg injury, ODU (18-7, 10-3 in CAA) head coach Blaine Taylor shrugged, said nothing memorable and got out of the media room as fast as he could. As Taylor had been mocked relentlessly in the first half of the contest by Chris Crowley, the founder of the Rowdy Rams, it was no wonder the always-loquacious-in-victory coach was anxious to hit the road to Norfolk.

Crowley — known as Pavarotti to his fellow Rowdy Rams — was once again doing his Taylor imitation on the floor in front of the pep band, which is only ten paces from ODU’s bench. Pavarotti, who usually wears a Ram headdress and yellow T-shirt, was in a coat-and-tie get-up, mimicking the mustachioed coach of the Monarchs every move. Yes, it was funny and Taylor had to have been disappointed that Pavarotti wasn’t snowbound, somewhere miles from the VCU campus.

On Tuesday VCU (17-5, 9-4 in CAA) travels to Fairfax to play George Mason (15-9, 10-3 in CAA) in what will be the only regular season meeting between the two teams. Tip-off is at 7 p.m; the game will be televised by ESPNU.

Click here to see the box score.

– Words and photo by F.T. Rea