There were many that said VCU did not belong in the 2011 NCAA Tournament as an at-large team, which obviously gave the Rams some sort of motivation. Not surprisingly, they used that motivation as fuel to push them past Georgetown and deeper in the NCAA bracket.
↵But with so much doubt out there, how did the Rams decide on which critique specifically to use as motivation? In the end, they chose the one that was most ridiculous and played the clip right before their win. Via Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.
↵↵↵"Today, before we had lunch, we sat down and watched a video of Joe Lunardi saying we couldn't guard him," [coach Shaka] Smart said. "He said over and over in the video, they can't guard me, they can't guard me. We were showing clips of Chris Wright and Austin Freeman and Jason Clark."
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Something tells me the ESPN bracketologist doesn't have nearly as good a first step as Wright. There's criticism of VCU's selection, and there's Joe Lunardi saying he could score on Jamie Skeen. I guess that's motivation enough for VCU.