The coach from Philadelphia, whose team wears black and gold, beat the Flyers (with a guy named L’Etang) at PPG Paints Arena to win a basketball championship.
A lot of that fails to compute, right?
But there was no such confusion as to how coach Phil Martelli Jr. and his VCU Rams claimed the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship in Pittsburgh this week.
“(Senior guard Jadrian) Tracey was using the word selfless even before our first game (in Pittsburgh),” VCU junior forward Michael Belle said. “I think that’s really what this whole season was, us being selfless, us being humble. Keeping ourselves humble, but knowing that we had the talent. Never keeping our heads down. Always looking at the next game, to the next opportunity, the next play. And I feel like we definitely took leaps at the end of the season as a team. We found our identity.”
The Rams built strength as the tournament moved along, scoring a hard-fought 71-66 win over Duquesne in its own backyard. Then they blew past St. Joseph’s, 77-64, in a game that the Hawks once trailed by 25.
And in Sunday’s final, the second-seeded Rams beat fourth-seeded Dayton, 70-62, in a game VCU never trailed. That was a Flyers team that had 23 wins and had just beaten No. 1 seed Saint Louis 24 hours earlier.
Tyrell Ward THROWS IT DOWN!@VCU_Hoops getting out in transition. pic.twitter.com/vsXmqArJiz
— CBS Sports College Basketball ???? (@CBSSportsCBB) March 15, 2026
“I think they’ve got great talent, great depth. They play a style that’s somewhat unique, that allows their players to play with great freedom,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant said. “When you can have a variety of weapons like that, I think that is probably the first thing that jumps out.”
For their conference championship effort, the Rams got a No. 11 seed against sixth-seeded North Carolina on Thursday in the NCAA Tournament. The last time an A-10 Tournament winner advanced to the big dance out of Pittsburgh was a 2017 Rhode Island squad coached by Danny Hurley. That URI club upset sixth-seeded Creighton as an 11-seed before narrowly losing in the Round of 32 to an Oregon team that went to the Final Four.
In 2022, Villanova started its Final Four route at PPG Paints Arena. So did 11th-seeded N.C. State in 2024.
These Rams are of the opinion that they can do something similar.
“For the dance, I think we’re the team that nobody wants to see in the first round, to be honest,” sophomore Terrence Hill Jr. said. “Especially when we’re cooking. We’re a scary team.”
This is the VCU’s third A-10 Tournament title in the last four years. Two of those wins have come over the Flyers in the final game. But for Martelli, it’s his first title in this conference, after taking over for Ryan Odom on the Rams’ bench in advance of this season.
However, it will be his second straight NCAA Tournament berth, taking Bryant there last year as America East champions in 2025.
“I’m grateful for Ryan Odom — for what he left here,” Martelli said. “Some places you walk in and it’s a dumpster fire. How do I fix it? Everything was lined up, and then we put our touch on it.”
That “touch” resulted in a team that ended up winning 16 of 17 games since Jan. 14.
Now, the Rams will try to make that 17 of 18 with the hope that some of the Pittsburgh pixie dust from tournaments past carries over to next week.