VIDEO: VCU ROUTS CAL (PA.) 92-43

VIDEO: SHAKA SMART CAL (PA.) POSTGAME PRESSER

BONUS

New version of the Haka chant, courtesy of VCU Ram Nation’s Matt Morton.

A SMART MENTOR, BROWN AN OPPONENT VCU FANS CAN CHEER FOR

Shaka Smart with California (Pa.) Head Coach Bill Brown at the 2011 Final Four in Houston.

RICHMOND, Va. – You could argue that VCU fans owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Brown.

It was Brown, the longtime California (Pa.) coach, who discovered Smart as an undersized Wisconsin high school point guard who played with “classy arrogance”. It was Brown who recruited Smart to Kenyon (Ohio) College. Although Brown coached Smart for only a year, he left a lifelong impression. Brown encouraged Smart to pursue coaching and promised the future VCU coach a graduate assistant position on his staff. It was Brown who housed Smart under his roof for two years, and who shared lessons on basketball and life.

“We’d stay up until 12 or 1 o’clock in the morning talking basketball,” Brown said.

It was Brown that decided early on that Smart wasn’t like every other basketball recruit, even at Kenyon, which holds a sterling academic reputation.

“I saw him in the Wisconsin All-Star Game,” Brown recalled. “There were several D-I guys in the game, and he blended right in because they listened to him. He got in the big guys’ ears, he got in the All-American’s ear, and everybody listened to him. He has the personality to draw people in. I saw a man who was going to go places and at that time I needed a guy who I could hand the ball to right away, and he didn’t disappoint.”

SHAKA SMART MEDIA MINUTES (NOV. 4)

Here are highlights from Shaka Smart’s first weekly presser of the season. The Rams are preparing for an exhibition contest with Division II California (Pa.), coached by Smart mentor Bill Brown.

CALIFORNIA (PA.) EXHIBITION NOTEBOOK

Despite a lot of offseason chatter fouls slid into the background of VCU’s 92-54 win.

BOX SCORE

RICHMOND, Va. – It’s a bit of a fishing expedition to find a reasonable narrative in these mismatched Division I-Division II exhibition games.  There’s a desire to look at the scoreboard, which showed that VCU earned a 92-54 win over California (Pa.) Saturday night, and extrapolate 100 superlatives from the wreckage of the box score. More often than not, it’s fool’s gold.

But Saturday, even as I waded through some impressive, if not gaudy, statistics, I was still struck by the depth of talent on this VCU team. If Shaka Smart truly desires a 10 or 11-man rotation, it sure looks like he’s got the horses to do it.

Smart essentially rotated 11 players in the first half and 10 in the second after Rob Brandenberg exited with back spasms. While there were moments of youthful frustration, there was hardly a dramatic drop-off in ability.

Freshman Doug Brooks led VCU in scoring with 14 points in 13 minutes of play. For most of those 13 minutes, he looked like Briante Weber with a better jumper and a disinterested barber.