PITTSBURGH – Two years ago, the Richmond Spiders swept the regular season series from VCU, but then lost to the Rams in the A-10 tournament in Brooklyn.
The Rams haven’t lost to the Spiders since.
VCU will put a 5 game winning streak against their crosstown rivals on the line Saturday afternoon in an A-10 semifinal game that will send the winner to Sunday’s championship. You can see the semifinal around 3:30 Saturday afternoon on CBS Sports Net.
Sunday's A-10 championship game will air on CBS-6.
Richmond would like to return that favor from two seasons ago. VCU won both meetings this year by scores of 81-74 at the Siegel Center, and 84-73 at the Robins Center. Each team used some second half heroics on Friday to get past their quarterfinal opponents.
"Richmond has the Rookie of the Year and the Player of the Year in the league" said VCU head coach Will Wade, referring to De'Monte Buckingham and T.J. Cline respectively. "They spread you out and you've got to be really good defensively against them."
"We have to defend and match their physicality" said Cline. "If we can do that and stay on our scouting report, we have a pretty good chance to win."
"Their size is especially dominant against us" said Spiders coach Chris Mooney. "We have to figure out how to make their size not as much of an issue."
"That's not the easiest thing in the world."
Just ask George Mason.
