Before Loyola it was VCU: Daniels looks back at ‘amazing experience’
Mar 30, 2018, 9:31 AM
Phoenix Suns guard Troy Daniels (30) goes to the basket past Detroit Pistons guard Langston Galloway (9) during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017 in Detroit. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)
(AP Photo/Duane Burleson)
PHOENIX, Ariz. – Before Loyola Chicago, it hadn’t happened since 2011. And Phoenix Suns guard Troy Daniels was there.
Not only was Daniels there at Reliant Stadium (now called NRG Stadium) in Houston, he was courtside. In uniform, in fact. Playing for Virginia Commonwealth University, which at the time was just the third-ever No. 11 seed to reach the Final Four.
Daniels was a sophomore during VCU’s improbable stretch.
“It was a crazy run,” he told 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station this week. “I mean, you got fans coming up to you even if you’re not playing. Police escort from the arena to the airport. It was a fun experience, man, it really was.”
That season VCU went 23-11 and lost to Old Dominion in the championship game of the CAA Tournament. Still, they earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, which in 2011 had expanded to 68 teams with four “Play-In Games.”
As one of the last four teams to receive a bid, VCU was sent to Dayton, OH to play USC. They beat the Trojans, 59-46. Up next was Georgetown (74-56), then Purdue (94-76), Florida State (72-71 OT) and Kansas (71-61), the No. 1 seed in the Southwest Region.
“Each game we won,” Daniels said, “we would know, ‘hey, we’re getting closer to the Final Four.’ It was an amazing experience.”
The win over Kansas in the Elite 8 to advance to the Final Four is the one game that really stands out for Daniels.
“That was a wild experience. I think I shed a couple of tears just because, as a kid you dream of playing in the Final Four or making it to the Final Four. For us, even the Elite 8, the Sweet 16, it was an accomplishment. But Final Four, that’s a totally different beast and it was amazing, that moment, when we went there, it was really amazing,” he said.
Daniels didn’t play much his sophomore season. He did, though, appear in five of VCU’s six tournament games, including the National Semi-Final against Butler. VCU lost the game, 70-62, in front of an announced crowd of 75,421.
“I was just getting off of a foot injury. I broke my foot that year, so I was trying to make sure I don’t reinjure it or something like that,” Daniels said. “But the experience out there when I went out there on the Final Four floor, it was amazing. You’re playing in a big NFL [stadium]. You’re not playing in front of those many fans in the NBA. It’s an unbelievable experience that I will never forget.”
Fast forward seven years and now its Loyola Chicago playing the underdog role.
“Obviously, everybody is watching the 11-seed go to the Final Four,” Daniels said. “I love underdogs. There’s something about an underdog that I love—I’m an underdog myself, as a person, as a player so I love it. It’s hard not to watch it.”
Among those a part of that 2010-11 VCU team, Daniels said he still keeps in touch with several players, including guards Joey Rodriguez and Darius Theus—“He’s one of my best friends,” Daniels said, referring to Theus—plus head coach Shaka Smart (now at Texas) and assistant coach Will Wade (now the head coach at LSU).
“We talk, maybe four to five times a month,” Daniels said of Smart. “It’s a bond you build. I’ll talk to those guys for the rest of my life.”
Though there’s been no talk yet, Daniels is all in on a reunion in three years to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of what was then, like it is now with Loyola Chicago, the talk of the country, a Final Four appearance by an 11-seed, the VCU Rams.
“We all take a vacation somewhere or meet in Richmond or something like that just to, you know, kick it and see where guys are at in life and, you know, have fun,” he said.
