The #14 Virginia Commonwealth Rams showed themselves to be every bit as advertised in the first half of their A-10 game versus the Richmond Spiders on Saturday.

The second half, however, proved to be quite another story.

Richmond mustered only 22 points over the first 20 minutes and found itself trailing by 6 at intermission. The the Spiders seemed to solve VCU’s Havoc pressure defense and hung 42 points on the Rams and finished with a 64-55 victory.

The win moves Richmond to 5-3 in Atlantic 10 play, while VCU suffered its first conference loss and is now 7-1.

Kendall Anthony led the Spiders with a game high 22 points. Terry Allen added 15 on an afternoon that saw only 7 Richmond players get floor time. Such a feat is remarkable considering the fast pace style deployed by VCU.

Richmond was able to handle the Rams’ Havoc pressure due largely to the play of Anthony who calmly worked his team through the full court defense and made several big shots to help quiet the A-10 leaders.

VCU was led by Treveon Graham’s 18 points, but the Rams suffered through a 3-19 performance beyond the arc. To make matters worse, guard Briante Weber left the game with a leg injury and did not return.

The Rams did make a late charge and cut Richmond’s lead to four with under a minute remaining, but the Spiders hit all six of their free throw attempts in crunch time to seal the upset victory.

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