After the game “Pavoratti” sent a message to Jeff Capel

Oklahoma came to the Siegel Center on Saturday night with its No. 17 national ranking. VCU came to the game having blown a big lead in its previous outing, a loss (83-67) at Western Michigan on Wednesday. So, the sell-out crowd wondered whether the home-standing Rams could stay with the elite Sooners.

VCU took a 3-0 lead 30 seconds into the game on a layup and foul shot by sophomore Bradford Burgess. The Rams never trailed in defeating the Sooners, coached by Jeff Capel, a familiar face to Rams fans: VCU 82, Oklahoma 69.

“Congrats to VCU,” said Capel, who coached the Rams for four years (2002-06). “It’s scary to think how good they’ll be when they have [Jamie] Skeen.”

Skeen is a 6-9 transfer from Wake Forest who will be eligible to play in the second semester. His presence will add a highly touted big man to the options VCU coach Shaka Smart will have. But Smart didn’t need Skeen this time. The first year coach used his bench well, playing nine men, all with double figures in minutes played.

“Our intensity level was through the roof,” said Jay Gavin, VCU’s sophomore shooting guard who led all scorers with 20 points. Gavin played his freshman season at Marist, then sat out last season after transferring to VCU. His scoring and leadership on the floor are helping to fill the void left by the departure of Eric Maynor, the Rams all-time leading scorer who graduated in May.

Burgess scored nine points and pulled down nine rebounds in 31 minutes of solid play.

The Sooners were paced by Tony Crocker’s 19 points, while Tiny Gallon added 15 points and 11 rebounds.

“I’m really proud of the way our guys played tonight,” Smart said. “The college basketball season is about resilience. We came back from Western Michigan and had one of the best practices of the year on Thursday. It showed me that our guys had a tremendous amount of focus and that’s exactly what we displayed tonight.”

VCU’s center Larry Sanders celebrated his 21st birthday with 17 points, 2 rebounds, four assists and three blocks. With Sanders on the floor, as he was for much of the second half, the Rams were a potent force on offense. Their inside/outside game worked well as the trailing Sooners applied more and more pressure on the ball.

Smart said in the second half he had the Rams run “the same play four or five times in a row.” Each time the running Rams got a good look out of the sequence. As the game wore on, VCU appeared to have more stamina and energy than did its opponent. In the doing the Rams established they have the potential to stay with almost anybody.

Click here to see the box score.

VCU (2-1) won’t have long to savor the biggest win, so far, for its rookie coach. The Rams will travel to Hampton (0-2) to take on the Pirates on Monday at 7 p.m.

– Words and photo by F. T. Rea