Because he’s a coach, which means he is predisposed to paranoia, Will Wade is not kicking back in his desk chair enjoying VCU’s run of good fortune in crazy finishes.
No, Wade is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“That stuff tends to even itself out,’’ Wade said. “So I’m immediately in worry mode, wondering if we’re going to be giving back a game down the stretch that we shouldn’t. I’ve been going through my brain, trying to come up with two games that we lost but should have won.’’
Odds are the coach can scour the record books, and he won’t find anything quite like the Rams’ week.
VCU won two games, at St. Bonaventure and against George Washington, when the clocked showed .4 seconds left in the game.
Against the Bonnies, a premature court storm earned the home team a technical foul and, with the Rams down 66-65, JeQuan Lewis sunk the free throw to force OT. VCU won in the bonus period.
Fast forward to Wednesday night, and the Rams are as good as toast again after GW’s Yuta Watanabe drilled what looked like a game-winning 3-pointer. Instead, officials added VCU’s lucky number — 0.4 — on the clock, giving the Rams a last gasp, down one.
On the Hail Mary inbounds, the Colonials’ Collin Goss was whistled for a charge — yes, even though he was technically a defender — sending Lewis to the line again. He sunk both. Game over.
Wade conceded the St. Bonaventure win was pure luck, but the GW victory did include at least a little gameplanning. The Rams, he said, practice that play at the end of every practice and every shootaround, not just executing the needed baseball pass but trying to draw the foul.
“The first option is to get run over and draw the foul,’’ Wade said. “You’ve got to throw a home run pass, so if nothing else, if the guy doesn’t run you over, you divert and go around and that gives the in-bounder more room to throw.”
As bizarre as the final two plays were, Wade pointed out that the actual winners weren’t made by the whistles; they were made by Lewis who now has calmly sunk three free throws in pressure situations.
Once corralled off the court, fans at St. Bonaventure weren’t exactly quiet and polite when the senior stepped to the line, and against GW, Lewis was staring at a one-and-one. Miss the first, and the game is over.
Instead the 81 percent free-throw shooter didn’t blink.
“Sometimes,” Wade said, “you have to make your own luck.”
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