VCU holds Jordan Price in check in win over La Salle

WITH THEIR matching white headbands, dark shoes and white socks, Korey Billbury and Jordan Price looked like twins wearing different colors on the floor of Tom Gola Arena.

For large portions of the game, wherever Price was on the La Salle offensive end, Billbury stood right with him, making it nearly impossible to get the ball in the hands of La Salle's leading scorer, let alone get him a good look at the basket.

Virginia Commonwealth, the top team in the Atlantic 10, knew the best way to beat the Explorers, the league's cellar-dweller: keep the league's second-leading scorer off the scoreboard as much as possible.

Add into the equation that Price has been dealing with a broken ring finger on his right hand and the Rams' task was a little easier.

Price, who injured the finger in a Jan. 13 loss in Richmond, was limited to only nine shot attempts, a season low, as the Explorers dropped their seventh straight game and 14th in their last 15, 88-70.

Price, who entered the game averaging 20.6 points per game, finished with 10 points on the night, his second-lowest scoring output of the season. He didn't score a basket until the waning moments of the first half, a three-pointer off a broken play.

"That makes it really tough," La Salle coach John Giannini said of Price playing injured. "We have five guys with any bit of experience in our program out there. Jordan is a guy we rely on and he's doing his best. But playing with a broken finger is not easy.

"Jordan's probably playing with one hand."

VCU's leading scorer, Melvin Johnson, meanwhile, had no trouble filling up the score sheet. Johnson tied a career high with eight three-pointers, en route to 30 points to lead the way for the Rams.

With Price ineffective, La Salle (5-15, 1-8 Atlantic 10) got 17 points from Amar Stukes, a career high for the La Salle College High School graduate.

VCU (18-3, 8-1), which finished four places outside of the Associated Press Top 25 this week, also got double-digit efforts from Jonathan Williams (14 points) and Justin Tillman (13).

With 6:43 to play in the first half, a brief 7-2 La Salle run had the Explorers down just 22-18 - despite no points from Price - and there was some excitement coming from the bench as the game was halted for a media timeout.

Back-to-back three-pointers from Johnson started a 10-0 VCU run that stretched to 22-10 over the final six minutes as the Rams built a 44-28 lead at the break. The final blow came on Johnson's sixth trey of the half right before the clock expired.

Johnson then hit his first shot from deep coming out of halftime. The Explorers never got the deficit to single digits again.

"We clearly have half a team," Giannini, whose team turned the ball over 17 times, said of the lack of depth, especially with an injured Price. "You look at our bench and you see the full team that we're about to have, and I know the team I have in practice. This is a one-year blip."