(Mo Alie-Cox and Melvin Johnson of VCU – Mike Lawrence – Sportsday Wire)
The VCU Rams blew out the Davidson Wildcats on Saturday afternoon in the Atlantic 10 semifinal to return to the championship game and attempt to repeat as tournament champions.
They will face off with the 2014 Atlantic 10 Tournament champions, St. Joseph’s, on Sunday afternoon.
VCU jumped out to a 38-30 lead at halftime and kept the momentum going in the opening minutes of the second half, taking a 51-30 lead on an electrifying alley-oop dunk from Mo Alie-Cox at the 16:08 mark.
That would balloon into a 30-point lead for VCU, 69-39 on a three by Jordan Burgess.
VCu was led by Korey Billbury, who had 17 points (7-15 FG, 3-5 threes), seven rebounds, and an assist. Mo Alie-Cox finished with 13 points on 4-6 from the field, four rebounds and three assists. JeQuan Lewis had 11 points (4-5 FG, 3-4 threes), three assists, and two rebounds.
Davidson was led by Brian Sullivan, who had 15 points on 6-13 from the field, 3-9 on threes, an assist, and a rebound.
VCU Head Coach Will Wade said of the game, “Good win. Really, really proud of our guys. We guarded well. We played very, very well. We took the air out of the ball there at the end so we could rest some guys and didn’t have to play anybody a ton of minutes. Really proud of just everybody. Everybody stepped up. Mel really got us that spurt at the end of the first half that we needed to get a lead, but everybody stepped up. We did a good job on the glass again against them. Did a nice job contesting threes against them, that’s been the story when we’ve played them this year. We’ve been able to do that. Very proud of our guys, and they’ve earned it, and we’ve got to turn the page quickly and get ready to go tomorrow.”
JeQuan Lewis said of what having the experience of winning the championship in this building a year ago does for them going into Sunday’s game against St. Joe’s, “We’re hungry. We want more.”
Mo Alie-Cox said of that, “I just told a couple of the guys after the game, don’t take this for granted, and we’ve been here, we’ve lost, what, two championships here, and last year we got a taste of what winning felt like, so I told them there’s no better feeling than going home with a win instead of a loss, so I think that just stuck in guys’ minds and we just know we’ve got to come in here with an attacking mindset, sticking to our game plan, playing inside out and we should be fine.”
