For the 92nd time, the rivalry between the Richmond Spiders and the VCU Rams will renew at 4 p.m. at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.
No edition of the storied Virginia rivalry has been quite like this one.
The Spiders (16-5, 8-0 Atlantic 10) is receiving votes in the Associated Press poll, and with a win on Saturday could further solidify their grip on the top spot in the conference as the A-10’s last unbeaten.
VCU (13-8, 5-3 A-10) had a bumpy start to the conference season following a complete rebuild under head coach Ryan Odom, but were riding a five-game win streak and the nation’s leading road winning streak before the St. Bonaventure Bonnies snapped both on Tuesday night in Olean. The Rams led by as many as 20 points in the game, marking VCU’s largest blown lead in over a decade.
Add in the VCU guard that was on Richmond’s squad 12 months ago, the Richmond guard who is lighting up scoreboards and rising in conference player of the year conversations and the local flair the rebuilt VCU roster has, and you get perhaps the most anticipated matchup between the Spiders and Rams of the last half decade.
Duke-North Carolina doesn’t hold a candle to what you’ll get in Richmond this afternoon.
The unique case of Jason Nelson
In the nearly 50 year history of the Capital City Classic, no player has ever traded benches and played for both teams in the storied rivalry.
VCU sophomore guard Jason Nelson will make history Saturday afternoon, officially sealing the six-mile journey he took in the offseason to his new basketball home.
The Richmond native and John Marshall High School graduate sealed his transfer to VCU on April 18 along with fellow John Marshall graduate Roosevelt Wheeler, two of VCU’s four Richmond-area native players (more on that later).
Nelson has seen more playing time in recent weeks due to injuries to regular starters Zeb Jackson (back) and Sean Bairstow (ribs) allowing him to slide into the starting lineup. With Bairstow looking doubtful for Saturday’s game (more on that later, as well), Nelson looks primed to get the first crack at his former squad with the starters. It would be his fifth consecutive start.
With Richmond last season, Nelson started 26 games, averaging eight points per game and shooting just over 38% from deep. At the Siegel Center last season, Nelson scored four points and dished out three assists off the bench in the Spiders’ 73-58 loss to a VCU team that ultimately won the A-10 regular season and tournament titles.
While Nelson’s averages have dipped slightly in 2023-24 due to decreased playing time relative to last season, the 5-10 guard has raised his field goal percentage to above 41%, mostly due to a 45.2% hit rate inside the arc.
King him!
It has been a while since longtime Richmond head coach Chris Mooney has had his Spiders rolling like this.
And with a hot 8-0 start, Mooney has the inside track to his first conference regular season title in his 19th season at the helm of the Richmond program.
Richmond arrives on Broad Street Saturday with an 8-0 record in conference play, the Spiders’ best start to A-10 play since joining the conference in 2001. The program carries an 11-game win streak, trailing only McNeese (and former VCU head coach Will Wade) for the longest active Division I win streak.
The last time a Richmond team won 11 or more games in a row? 1934-35, when the Spiders rattled off 22 straight wins.
The streak includes a home win over the nationally-ranked Dayton Flyers last Saturday, which officially gave the Spiders the top spot in the A-10 standings, as well as provided oxygen to a possible at-large bid in March’s NCAA Tournament.
A lot of that success is due to Jordan King, the East Tennessee State grad transfer who is the reigning A-10 Player of the Week and is lighting up scoreboards throughout the conference.
King leads the Spiders with a 19.4 points per game average, good for second in the conference behind Dayton’s DaRon Holmes II. The pair have begun to separate themselves as the frontrunners for conference player of the year as the season winds down.
King’s scoring comes courtesy of the 3-pointer, which he makes at a 43.9% clip. On the season, King has shot 48.8% from the floor – an exceptional mark considering 123 of his attempts are from deep.
Ten times this season, King has eclipsed 20 points, including three 30-point outings. King has broken double figures every game in A-10 play, with a high of 32 against George Washington on Jan. 24.
All told, VCU’s guards have one mission – stop the conference’s most electric shooter.
In the paint, Richmond has 7-footer Neal Quinn to pack a scoring punch.
Quinn is second on the Spiders in scoring with 12.8 points per game, while shooting above 50% from the floor. The senior from New Jersey started all 33 games for Richmond in 2022-23 and rarely checks out of games for rest, having a tendency to wear out smaller forwards and centers throughout a 40-minute game.
The job of slowing down Quinn will fall to two of VCU’s most athletic bigs, Christian Fermin and Tobi Lawal. Lawal’s 49.5-inch vertical will make up for some of the sizing mismatch, while Fermin has elevated himself as one of the conference’s premier shot-blockers, ranking in the top ten in the A-10 in blocks.
Homecoming Rams
In rebuilding VCU’s roster following the departure of head coach Mike Rhoades and the majority of the A-10 winning roster in 2023, new head coach Ryan Odom focused on two key areas – international players and local talent.
Perhaps no contest is more important to Richmond area natives than the Capital City Classic, which highlights the large difference a mere six miles makes between the campuses of the private, secluded University of Richmond and the public, dropped-in-downtown VCU.
Four Rams hail from Richmond and the surrounding counties, including Jason Nelson and Roosevelt Wheeler (John Marshall), Fats Billups (Varina) and Joe Bamisile (Monacan).
The quartet are featured on VCU’s game program for Saturday afternoon, highlighting a local flair that the Rams mostly lacked during the Mike Rhoades era that often saw the roster devoid of any local Virginia talent.
https://x.com/peteydoesgrafix/status/1753778588472455310?s=20
Bamisile’s story this season has been especially interesting for VCU fans to follow. Originally denied a waiver for immediate eligibility by the NCAA, an injunction by U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia allowing multi-time transfers immediate eligibility has allowed Bamisile to play for his hometown Rams.
The senior, who most recently played for Oklahoma before arriving on Broad Street, has provided explosive scoring moments, including a 29-point eruption in a Friday night showcase game in January against Saint Louis.
Bamisile followed that performance up with a 25-point game on the road against Loyola Chicago, becoming the first Ram since JeQuan Lewis in 2016-17 to score 25 or more points in back-to-back games.
As mentioned earlier, Nelson has seen increased opportunity in conference play and has taken advantage to the tune of a greater than 41% field goal percentage.
Billups, a holdover from the Rhoades era, has ignited crowds with deep 3-pointers and an enduring, passionate play style. The redshirt-freshman has had limited playing time in recent games but has shown flashes of scoring prowess during his first full season.
His crowning achievement thus far came in Florida in November against his former head coach and the Penn State Nittany Lions, when the 6-7 guard exploded for a career-high 23 points. On the afternoon, Billups missed just one shot, connecting five times from beyond the arc.
Wheeler has had limited play time in his first season at VCU. The Louisville transfer has not appeared in a game in conference play.
Injury report
CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday morning that VCU grad student Sean Bairstow is doubtful with a rib injury.
Bairstow was a somewhat surprising scratch from the St. Bonaventure game Tuesday night, which VCU lost 67-62 after leading by as many as 20 points earlier on in the contest.
The Brisbane, Australia native missed much of the non-conference slate with a foot fracture, making his season debut Dec. 22 in a win against Maryland-Eastern Shore.
In nine games, the preseason A-10 All-Conference Third Team selection is averaging 10.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game. He has scored in double figures six times, with a high-water mark of 22 against Gardner-Webb on Dec. 30.
The Richmond Spiders enter the Siegel Center with a clean injury report Saturday.
Rivalry history
Historically, VCU has entered the Capital City Classic fighting for an A-10 title while Richmond has been around mid-pack in the conference.
The roles have been flip-flopped this year – but records do not matter when the rivalry is on the line.
In 91 prior meetings, VCU leads the all-time series 59-32 and has a two-game win streak in the rivalry after completing the season sweep against the Spiders in 2022-23.
VCU has not lost a regular season game to Richmond since 2020, a five-game streak only blemished by the 2022 A-10 tournament, when the Rams got bounced by a Spiders team that ultimately won the conference title.
The last time the Spiders won at the Siegel Center was 2018, in head coach Mike Rhoades’ first year at the helm, when Richmond defeated VCU 67-52 on a snowy Richmond January night. The win is one of only two the Spiders have had at the Siegel Center in the last decade.
The rivalry has simple enough origins – schools in the same metro area, that have almost always been in the same conference, that are separated by distances small in distance but vast in culture.
But the Capital City Classic remains one of the hottest tickets in town, with VCU reporting a sellout over a week before Saturday’s game. Add in the intrigue detailed above, and you have perhaps the most anticipated regular season Capital City Classic game in recent memory.
Despite Richmond riding an 11-game win streak and VCU coming off a tough road loss, the oddsmakers have VCU favored by 3.5 points on Saturday. Even the oddsmakers know – records get thrown out when the Spiders and Rams tip off.
The next chapter in the Capital City Classic novel will be written at 4 p.m. today at the Siegel Center in downtown Richmond. The game will be nationally televised on ESPNU.
