VCU took down Davidson 71-53 on Thursday (March 9). St. Louis demolished George Mason 82-54 a couple hours later.
The two teams now meet for the third time this season on Saturday (March 11) at the Barclays Center to determine whether the Rams or Billikens moves on to the Atlantic 10 tournament's championship game.
Adam Epstein was joined by VCU play-by-play voice Robby Robinson at Black Forest Brooklyn on Friday (March 10), the tournament's off-day, to break down the matchup.
"We beat them on their home floor on a Friday night -- yes, Ace was the headliner," Robinson said. "[But do] you know how hard that is? Every time we walk into arena like that, it's a blue-out or a whiteout or 'bring back your famous' -- I remember we went to UMass one year, and [...] they brought back Victor Cruz to UMass and Victor did his little salsa thing. We're like, 'we're going to have to beat Victor Cruz too?!
"[But] to go into St. Louis [in front of] 10,000 people, they're all in the whiteout, ESPN is there. At the time, St. Louis has probably got visions of winning the conference, they're a very talented team, and to beat them -- I don't care how you do it, I don't care if Ace has to score 60 -- and win. [...] We left St. Louis and it was like, 'we're good.' It's difficult to go into that environment and win on the road, so that's the thing that stands out to me most in that game."
VCU won that game 73-65 in early February, sweeping the regular-season series with a 79-67 win over the Billikens at the Siegel Center almost four weeks later. The Rams' win over Davidson gave them a 3-0 record against the Wildcats in 2022-23, as well.
"We got to keep scoring the ball," Epstein said, "and can't go on scoring droughts, which have kind of hurt us at times this season."
Adam asked Robby who he was most worried about from the Billikens' roster.
"Yuri Collins is who really worries me," Robinson said. "I feel like Yuri took the first 30 minutes off against us when we played them at the Siegel Center, and then decided he wanted to be an offensive force. He was tough down the stretch -- he kept it close. We have to do a phenomenal job on Yuri Collins tomorrow."
Check out more from the segment below.