March 18, 2010 | AP Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Richmond was on the wrong side of an NCAA tournament upset this time, and Saint Mary’s is moving on for the first time in more than 50 years.

Omar Samhan had 29 points and 12 rebounds despite spending most of the game in foul trouble, and Saint Mary’s pulled away from Richmond to win 80-71 on Thursday in the first round of the South Regional.

Samhan scored the Gaels’ first 10 points, but he picked up his first foul 5 minutes into the game and his second midway through the first half. Richmond led 19-17 at the time, and Bennett didn’t give much thought to sitting Samhan down.

“If you have a guy like Samhan, why would you sit him when he only has two?” Bennett said. “I haven’t been a big believer of that. It depends on how smart your player is. Omar is a key player to us. He was tonight. The more minutes we can have him out on the floor, no question he’s better for us.”

Samhan picked up his third foul with 6:31 left in the first, and went to the bench for the rest of the half with 17 points and seven rebounds. He had 27 and 11 when he picked up his fourth foul with 9:13 left and Saint Mary’s leading 59-50; he sat down and didn’t return for six minutes.

“For some reason this season, I’ve been finding myself in foul trouble a lot,” said Samhan, who fouled out six times this year after doing it just three times in the previous three. “You have to play smart. Coach was fired up at me, and I was trying hard not to get any in the second half.”

But his absence didn’t slow down the Gaels.

They took a 12-point lead right after he went to the bench when McConnell faked forward and stepped back with the shot clock winding down, arcing a high 3-pointer into the basket. McConnell then fed Clint Steindl for a 3 that made it 65-50 with 7:32 left.

The fans, who spent much of the game yelling chants for the five Australians on the Saint Mary’s roster, began calling for Bennett to put Samhan back in the game. When he returned, with 3:14 to play, he immediately grabbed a rebound and then finished off a fast break with a dunk that gave Saint Mary’s a 72-59 lead.

McConnell went 5 for 9 from 3-point range in the game, and Steindl was 3 for 5 as Saint Mary’s went 8 for 19 from beyond the arc overall.

“After I got going they didn’t double team me. I haven’t seen that a lot this year,” Samhan said. “I’ve been doubled a lot. It was good. It’s hard to double with the four we have out there, because they can shoot it. They are the reasons I have good nights is the other four guys on the court opened it up for me, they’re shooting unbelievable from 3.

“I was surprised, but not really, because  Clint and Mickey will make them pay.”

The Gaels, from Moraga, Calif., north of Oakland, had lost five straight NCAA games since 1959, when they beat Idaho State to advance to the round of eight in a 23-team tournament.

“That, and the fact that no one picked us to win this game was a bit of a chip on our shoulder,” forward Ben Allen said. “We hadn’t done this in 50 years. It was something we wanted to prove. We are a team that’s done so many things this season, and add that to the stack. So we’re advancing in the dance.”

March 25, 2009 | AP Press

RICHMOND, Va. — Stefon Jackson scored 34 points and Texas-El Paso went on a 10-0 run after Richmond closed within two in the second half Wednesday night and the Miners beat the Spiders 81-69 to reach the College Basketball Invitational finals.

UTEP (22-12), in its third season under Tony Barbee, will play Oregon State or Stanford, who played later in the later semifinal, in a best-of-three series beginning March 30.

“My team came out focused and ready to play and to get to the championship of the CBI,” Jackson, the lone UTEP seniors, said. “We executed everything Coach Barbee prepared for us.”

Richmond (20-16) didn’t score for more than four minutes after Ryan Butler’s driving layup pulled them to 58-56 with 7:59 to play. During the drought, coach Chris Mooney was ejected for drawing his second technical foul for arguing what he thought was poor officiating.

David Gonzalvez led the Spiders with 24 points.

“Man, he’s really good,” he said of Jackson, one of the nation’s leading scorers with a 24.3 average. “We knew he was good going right, but I don’t think we had any idea how good.”

UTEP, which outscored Richmond 26-14 at the line, had already rebuilt its lead to 63-56 on three free throws by Jackson and Randy Culpepper’s basket when Justin Harper appeared to score on a dunk for the Spiders. But the officials waved it off, calling Harper instead for a charge, and then compounded Mooney’s frustration by calling a foul on an apparent block by Richmond’s Jarhon Giddings at the other end. As Mooney peeled off his jacket, he was tossed.

“The second one, I didn’t say anything,” Mooney said, adding that he apologized to the team for getting ejected. “I think it’s probably more cumulative if I’m asking for too many calls, but I certainly didn’t swear or raise my voice or anything like that.”

Jackson made both free throws, making it 65-56 with 4:44 to play, and it was over.

Culpepper added 19 points for the Miners.

Giddings scored 10 in his final game as the Spiders’ lone scholarship senior.

The Miners used a 15-5 run to open a 28-16 lead with nine minutes left in the first half. Culpepper had six points in the burst and Jackson four. After the Spiders scored nine straight points to get within 28-25, Jackson scored 10 more in a 14-8 run to end the half.

March 23, 2009 | RichmondSpiders.com

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. – Kevin Anderson drilled a pull-up jumper with nine seconds remaining to seal a 74-72 win over the College of Charleston in the CBI Second Round at the Robins Center Monday night. Richmond, which reached 20 wins for the 16th time in school history, advances to the Semifinals Wednesday.

Anderson finished with 21 points and the Second Team All-Atlantic 10 sophomore guard moved into 10th-place on the Spiders’ single-season scoring with 920. Anderson was nine-of-17 from the field, grabbed four rebounds, dished five assists with one turnover in 38 minutes on the court.

He reached the 20-point mark for the sixth-straight game and eighth time in the last 11.

Richmond (20-15) will learn is next opponent late Monday night as the bracket’s four remaining teams get re-seeded. Stanford has already dispatched Wichita State tonight, 70-56, with Northeastern at UTEP and Vermont at Oregon State set for 10 p.m. ET tipoffs.

David Gonzalvez added 15 points and Ryan Butler scored 10 for the Spiders, while Darrius Garrett played his second big game for Richmond off the bench with six points (on three-of-three shooting), four boards and three blocked shots.

A layup by Tony White with 15:03 remaining cut Richmond’s lead to just 43-42, but Richmond embarked on a 16-4 run over the next five minutes and built its largest margin of the game at 59-46. Anderson and Gonzalvez each scored five in the spurt.

The Bobby Cremins-led Cougars, who finished second to Davidson in the Southern Conference, would not go quietly and trimmed the lead to just two with 42 seconds left thanks to back-to-back baskets from Dustin Scott and a put-back layup from White.

But with the ball in his hands and his team up 72-70, Anderson milked the clock down to the final seconds before driving to the near-side elbow and drilling his patented floater in traffic for the decisive basket with 9.3 on the clock.

Richmond called timeout and Jermaine Johnson tipped in his own miss on the ensuing possession with three seconds left, Charleston called timeout then fouled Anderson. The sophomore missed the front-end of the 1-and-1, leaving the Cougars only a desperation heave at the buzzer that fell short.

Johnson scored 15 to lead four in double-figures for Charleston, which ended its season 27-9.

The fast-paced game featured just 21 total fouls and 12 combined free throws attempts, while each team turned the ball over just nine times.

Richmond jumped out of the gate quickly and opened a six-point lead at 18-12 when Francis Cedric Martel slammed an alley-op pass from Anderson. Another dunk by Kevin Smith brought the Robins Center crowd to its feet and put Richmond up 30-23 with 5:56 left in the first.

College of Charleston would cut the lead to 33-31, but the Spiders closed the half with a 6-2 run and took a 39-33 lead into the break.

March 18, 2009 | Richmondspiders.com

RICHMOND, Va. – Junior David Gonzalvez scored 27 points and sophomore Kevin Anderson had 20 as Richmond overcame a 14-point first-half deficit to defeat St. John’s 75-69 Wednesday in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational.

Richmond improved to 19-15 overall and advance to play Bobby Cremins and the College of Charleston on Monday night in the CBI quarterfinals at the Robins Center.

Gonzalvez made 9-of-17 field goals, including 5-of-7 three-pointers, on his way to his to his fourth game scoring 25 or more points in his career, including his third this season. This was the fourth time in his career that he has made at least five three-pointers in a game. He also dished out four assists.

With his 27 points, Gonzalvez jumped from 25th to 22nd on the Spiders’ all-time scoring list with 1,177 points, passing Tom Green (1,159), Kevin Eastman (1,162) and Butch Lambiotte (1,163). He also took over sole possession of fifth on the school’s all-time list for career three-pointers with 156.

Anderson scored 20 points for his fifth-straight 20-point game. The second-team All-Atlantic 10 selection has 10 20-point games this season, including seven in the last 10 games.

Spider senior Jarhon Giddings helped keep his career going with 16 points and five rebounds. Giddings made 5-of-8 field goals, including a season-high three three-pointers in four attempts.

The Spiders scored 70 points for the 19th time this season, the most 70-point games for Richmond since the 1993-94 team also had 19. Richmond has held 10 of its last 11 opponents under 70 points.

Richmond was out-rebounded 48-25 and St. John’s had 21 second-chance points, but the Spiders picked up their defensive pressure after allowing the Red Storm to shoot 62.1 percent (18-29) in the first half.

St. John’s had won three of the last five and four of the last seven against Big East competition, including two victories over Georgetown in the month of March.

The Red Storm came out of the gates aggressive, forcing a Richmond team averaging an Atlantic 10 leading 11.9 turnovers per game to six turnovers in the first six minutes. St. John’s led 19-5 seven minutes into the game and had the lead back to 14 at 29-15 and 37-23 with 4:18 to play.

Richmond went on a 10-2 run to cut the gap to six in the final minute of the half and went into the locker room down 41-33. The Spiders quickly cut the lead down to tow (44-42) four minutes in and took their first lead since the opening minutes on an old-fashioned three-point play by Kevin Anderson with 14:30 to play.

The Spiders built a seven-point lead with 11:12 to play, but St. John’s came back to tie the game at 61-61 with 6:06 to play. Giddings scored five-straight as the Spiders pushed the lead to four and a three-pointer by Anderson, followed by a pair of free throws had Richmond up nine with 2:26 left.

AP Photo

March 12, 2009 | AP Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Marcus Johnson scored 15 points, including two 3-pointers during a crucial second-half stretch, to lead third-seeded Dayton to a 69-64 win over sixth-seeded Richmond in the Atlantic 10 tournament quarterfinals Thursday night.

Luke Fabrizius had 11 points and Chris Johnson tallied 10 for the Flyers (26-6), who will play Duquesne in a semifinal game Friday night.

Kevin Anderson scored 24 points to lead Richmond (18-15). Kevin Butler also reached double figures for the Spiders with 13 points.

Dayton took its largest lead of the game when Paul Williams made a pair of free throws to put the Flyers ahead 53-44 with 8:39 remaining. Anderson’s 3-pointer capped a 9-1 Richmond run that pulled the Spiders within one 54-53 with 6:33 remaining.

But Johnson hit consecutive 3-pointers as Dayton scored eight of the next nine over 2:34 to take a 62-54 lead, and Richmond never got closer than five after that.

March 11, 2009 | AP Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Kevin Anderson scored 22 points to lead sixth-seeded Richmond to an 65-49 win over No. 11 St. Bonaventure in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament on Wednesday.

David Gonzalvez added 18 points and Ryan Butler had 10 for Richmond (18-14), which will play third-seeded Dayton at 9 p.m. Thursday in a quarterfinal game. Anderson added six assists for the Spiders, who were eliminated in the first round each of the last three years.

Andrew Nicholson and Jonathan Hall paced St. Bonaventure (15-15) with 13 points apiece.

Richmond led 28-22 at the half, then scored the first seven points of the second half, capped by Gonzalvez’s fastbreak layup on a behind-the-back assist from Anderson.

St. Bonaventure closed the gap to six when Michael Davenport hit consecutive 3-pointers with 9:39 left. But Butler converted five free throws during a 7-0 Richmond run that pushed the lead back to 13 with 6:31 left.

Starting Thursday afternoon, John Lamb of A10CollegeHoops.com will be courtside at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ to bring you live coverage of the Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball Conference Tournament. We will be giving you with live updates throughout the day. If it happens on the court, you will read about it right here.

With so many players, media personalities and other distinguished guests in the house you can bet that we will have plenty of interviews and other features to keep you busy in-between sessions. John will also be running a live blog for each game in case you don’t have access to television or radio.

Keep it here even after your favorite team experiences the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat as we will be sharing audio from all of the post game press conferences that take place throughout the week.

If you have any questions, concerns or comments please feel free to contact us via the link at the top of the page, by posting in the comments section or reaching out to us during one of the live blogs.

Finally, here is a down and dirty version of how John thinks tomorrow’s set of games will play out.

#8 La Salle vs. #9 St. Louis – This is certainly an interesting matchup as these two teams played this passed Saturday. Just like the last meeting, La Salle walk out with the W and move on to Day 2 of the tournament. This time they will do it by beating St. Louis at their own game: defense. This will be an ugly, defense-first kind of game.  EXPLORERS 62, BILLIKENS 54

#5 Saint Joseph’s vs. #12 Charlotte – SJU handled the 49ers in their previous matchup back in January but that was then and this is now. Neither team is really setting the world ablaze as Charlotte has dropped four of five since upsetting Xavier at Halton Arena and the Hawks have played .500 ball to the tune of 7-7 since defeating Charlotte. Although Coach Martelli has been justifying playing four of his five starters for 34 minutes-plus a game by saying that they are t0o young to be tired, it looks like the Hawks are running on fumes. Charlotte pulls off the minor ‘upset’ and we will be left wondering just how good Ahmad Nivins would have been if he had a complete team around him. 49ERS 74, HAWKS 67

#7 Duquesne vs. #10 Massachusetts – The resurgent Dukes of Duquesne played Umass in late February in Amherst and walked away with a 17 point victory. Massachusetts has talented players in  Chris Lowe, Tony Gaffney and Ricky Harris but they haven’t fully absorbed Derek Kellogg’s system. The Dukes, on the other hand, have become a dangerous team in league play under third-year coach Ron Everhart. Gone are the days of Duquesne being an automatic ‘W’ as this squad is for real and could give Rhode Island some serious competition. The Dukes lost by two to the Rams on March 1 and would love nothing better than to end URI’s season. DUKES 83, MINUTEMEN 71

#6 Richmond vs. #11 St. Bonaventure – This is an intriguing match up as one of the Bonnies six A-10 victories came at the expense of the Spiders back in January. Coming into this game there are those that are calling Richmond a dark horse to win it all. I suppose beating the best team in the conference on your home floor can get people talking about you. The Spiders have one of the best young coaches in the game in Chris Mooney and two talented guards: David Gonzalvez and Kevin Anderson. The Bonnies have a tremendous talent of their own in the form of A-10 Rookie of the Year Andrew Nicholson. While I think that Richmond will win the game and go on to face Dayton on Thursday, St. Bonaventure may very well be a force in the Atlantic 10 next year. The Bonnies will return four of their five starters and all but one of their contributing bench players. Mark Schmidt should be commended for the job he is doing with a program that was once a laughingstock. SPIDERS 67, BONNIES 61

John Lamb can be reached at johnlamb@a10collegehoops.com

AP Photo

March 7, 2009 | AP Press

RICHMOND, Va. — Kevin Anderson scored a career-high 29 points to lead Richmond to an 80-75 upset of No. 17 Xavier Saturday.

Justin Harper had 20 points for the Spiders (17-14, 9-7 Atlantic 10), who shot 50.9 percent and were 19-of-23 from the line. Jarhon Giddings added 12 points.

Derrick Brown had 16 points for Xavier (24-6, 12-4), which cut the lead to 75-73 with 1:21 remaining on Terrell Holloway’s short jumper in the lane to cap a 20-7 run.

Richmond hung on to beat a ranked team at the Robins Center for the seventh time in 37 years and first since last season against Dayton. Spiders scoring leader David Gonzalves was held to eight points.

After Holloway missed a pair of free throws, Anderson sunk a pair with 29 seconds left for a 78-73 lead. Brown cut it to 78-75 with 17.8 seconds left on two more.

After Richmond’s Francis Cedric Martel missed the front end of a one-and one, B.J. Raymond and Dante Jackson missed 3-pointers.

Harper rebounded and hit two free throws with 1.3 seconds left.

March 3, 2009 by Jordan Keyser | A10CollegeHoops

CHARLOTTE, NC — Richmond’s Kevin Anderson sliced down the lane and hit a contorting lay-up with 8 seconds to play to win the game for the Spiders, 64-62.

Lamont Mack had a career night for the 49ers, with a career high 32 points, as well as a career high 14 rebounds. Despite his stellar performance, Mack was obviously not satisfied with the outcome. Mack had a chance at a game winning three-pointer, but the shot rimmed out at the buzzer.

“I definitely had a good look. It just didn’t go in.” Mack said dejectedly. “It hurts. Me and Charlie wanted to go out on a win on senior night and we really wanted to get coach his 200th win (at Charlotte.)”

The game once again pitted two of the A-10’s best point guards against each other, with Richmond’s Anderson and Charlotte’s Dijuan Harris. In a reversal of Charlotte’s last game against Fordham, Harris was the one who was outplayed on both sides of the ball this time. Harris, who was 4th in the country in assists coming into this game, managed only 4 the entire game, as well as only 4 points. Anderson led the way for Richmond with 24 points and tacked on 6 rebounds.

According to 49er head coach Bobby Lutz, Anderson was the difference.

“We had no answer for Anderson tonight, that’s what it came down to. No matter what we did, no matter what adjustments we made, we couldn’t stop him. He was the difference tonight.”

Despite Anderson’s great guard play, it was a poor ball-handling night for both teams, with both squads having more turnovers than assists. In spite of the loss, Charlotte managed one of their best rebounding games of the season, with +14 ratio over Richmond, as well as a +10 ratio on the offensive boards.

With the loss, Charlotte falls to 11-18 overall and 5-10 in the conference. Their loss puts a trip to Atlantic City for the A-10 Conference Tournament in jeopardy. Their final game of the season is at St. Bonaventure on Saturday. Their postseason hopes, as well as St. Bonaventure’s, most likely will be determined by the outcome of the game.

Richmond closes their season out at home against 18th ranked Xavier on Saturday.

February 28, 2009 | AP Press

RICHMOND, Va. — Damian Hollis scored 15 points and had a career-high 16 rebounds to lead George Washington past Richmond 66-57 on Saturday night.

Travis King and Rob Diggs had 13 points each for the Colonials (10-16, 4-10 Atlantic 10 Conference). Diggs added nine rebounds.

David Gonzalvez led the Spiders (15-14, 7-7) with 18 points and Kevin Anderson added 11.

Richmond, which had won three in a row, shot a season-low 26.5 percent.

The Colonials scored nine straight points to move from a 14-14 tie to a 23-14 lead with 6:21 left in the first half. Diggs scored six of the points, starting the run with a layup and finishing it with a dunk.

Richmond cut the margin to 32-30 on Justin Harper’s 3-pointer with 17:04 left.

George Washington responded with a 9-2 run and the Spiders got no closer than five points when the Colonials had one field goal in 6:01.