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All eyes will be on one man this Tuesday when the Texas Longhorns travel to Richmond to take on the VCU Rams. It will be the return of coach Shaka Smart, who put VCU on the map by leading the Rams all the way to the Final Four back in 2011. VCU has continued to have success without Smart, so it shouldn’t be a contentious homecoming and he is likely to be given multiple standing ovations based on what he did for the program. It’s not often that you see an Atlantic 10 game as one of the highlights of the night, but this certainly will be.
This war on the floor will go down Tuesday, December 5, 2017, at 7 p.m. ET at Stuart C. Siegel Center in Richmond, Virginia. The game will be televised live on ESPN2. We'll have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Tuesday schedule.
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Texas is off to a very good start this season. The pressure is on Smart this year, but he has delivered so far. The Longhorns have pasted all of their patsies in non-conference play and looked impressive out in Portland. Texas easily handled Butler 61-48 in its first game and then took both Duke and Gonzaga to overtime in its next two outings. Both of those ended in losses, but it shows that the Longhorns are legit this year.
VCU isn’t off to a great start this year, but the Rams have done about what you’d expect considering their tough schedule. They are breaking in a new coach yet again and did pick up a nice win against Cal two weeks ago. However, VCU also lost to Virginia, Marquette, and Michigan, and although the Rams kept it reasonable against each school, that’s not a good look.
Coaching Angle
There is going to be a lot of talk about Smart’s return to campus in this one. This will be the first meeting between these two schools and the only reason they are playing is because this was a condition of Smart’s buyout. This may be the biggest non-conference game held at VCU in school history and it is sure to be the hottest ticket in Richmond.
Smart created the HAVOC defense that the Rams are known for and that has been the style this school has played even after his departure. VCU initially hired Will Wade to take over for Smart and Wade kept VCU playing the full court pressure defense favored by Smart. This past offseason, Wade left for LSU and the Rams turned to another former Smart assistant to take over. Mike Rhoades was the associate head coach at VCU for five years and came back to the school from Rice in order to keep the tradition going.
It should be interesting to see how Smart’s team does against one of his former assistants.
Key Stat
Thus far, these two defenses have been miles apart in terms of success. It took a while for Texas to adapt this style, but now the Longhorns are one of the best defensive teams in college basketball. Ken Pomeroy has them ranked as the fifth-best defense in the country and that has enabled them to stay competitive.
As for VCU, the Rams have had some uncharacteristic struggles on the defensive side of the ball. VCU is allowing opponents to hit 46 percent of their shots this season and is instead relying on its offense to win games. The Rams have allowed at least 65 points in every outing so far and that’s highly uncharacteristic of VCU basketball.
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This is going to be an emotional affair. Smart is going to have some mixed feelings for sure about coming back to where it all began. The crowd will be raucous and that will help VCU stay close enough to get the cover here.
College Basketball Odds: Texas 78, VCU 74
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