University of Richmond Athletics
University of Richmond
7-15,2-7Atlantic 10
VCU
17-5,7-2Atlantic 10
Spiders Overwhelmed by VCU at Siegel Center
02/01/2025 | Men's Basketball
RICHMOND, Va. — The Richmond Spiders men's basketball team was no match for VCU Saturday, falling to the Rams 90-49. The loss dropped Richmond to 7-15 on the season and 2-7 in Atlantic 10 play.
"No positive takeaways," said Richmond coach Chris Mooney after the game. "We've really competed [this season], even though we haven't had a ton of success and wins. Tonight, it felt like we didn't."
B. Artis White gave Richmond its only lead of the game early in the first half when he converted a layup and was fouled for a three-point play. VCU responded in a big way, taking advantage of three consecutive Richmond turnovers to score eight points in 31 seconds, giving the Rams a 12-3 lead and forcing a Spiders timeout.
"We turned the ball over early," said Mooney. "It just felt like we gave them a couple of easy shots off those turnovers."
Following their 12-0 run that put them ahead 14-3, the Rams added runs of 6-0, 6-0, and 11-0 later in the first half for a 44-13 lead at the break.
VCU shot 16-25 (64 percent) from the field in the first 20 minutes, including 8-14 from three-point range. UR was 0-7 from three-point range and 4-14 from two-point range in the first half, missing 11 of its final 12 shots entering halftime.
VCU, who entered Saturday's game forcing a league-high 15.4 turnovers per game, forced UR into 11 first-half turnovers, leading to 15 points for the Rams.
"You have to be committed enough, proud enough, tough enough to stop the bleeding at some point and we weren't able to do that," said Mooney.
While the outcome wasn't in doubt after halftime, the Spiders offense seemed more settled early in the period, as Richmond used back-to-back three-pointers from Jason Roche and White — UR's first of the game — and a White pull-up jumper for an 8-0 run, its largest of the game. After totaling 13 points in the first half, Richmond needed just 4:12 of game time in the second half to reach that total.
But for every Spiders bucket, VCU had an answer. The Rams used an 11-0 run to push their lead to 63-26 with 12:20 to play. They then held Richmond without a field goal for the final four-plus minutes, using a 13-4 run over that span to push the final score to 90-59.
"If you played one minute or 20 minutes, everybody has a responsibility," said Mooney. "Every coach has a responsibility. What could we have done to better prepare ourselves? Because you don't want to just look back and say 'Oh well, they played great today and it was going to be hard to beat them?' You have to look back and say 'Hey, these are the things that could have impacted us so that instead of it being 12-3 maybe it's 7-6."
UR ended up shooting 5-9 from three-point range in the second half and was led by Dusan Neskovic, who scored all of his team-high 12 points after halftime.
The Rams finished the game 16-29 (55.2 percent) from three-point range, the most made three-point field goals by an opponent during Chris Mooney's 20-year tenure at Richmond. Guard Max Shulga was 5-9 from three-point range and finished with a game-high 20 points.
"We need to regroup and get ourselves ready for Wednesday's game," added Mooney. "Hopefully, we'll be better because of it and not hang our heads but get to work."
The Spiders will host Duquesne Wednesday at the Robins Center. The game tips at 7 PM and can be seen on ESPN Plus and MASN.
