David Shriver, VCUs mountain man, is draining 3s and building a March Cinderella story

The hair is getting long, now well past shoulder-length. The mustache comes up somewhere short of Ted Lasso’s, but it is marvelous just the same. The look, as a whole, has already become iconic within the Stuart C. Siegel Center. It’s why Virginia Commonwealth fans wear stick-on ‘staches and chant Three Bird each time they catch sight of David Shriver, the Rams’ sharpshooting specialist.

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“You remember the movie ‘Almost Famous’? He looks like the lead singer,” said VCU coach Mike Rhoades, chuckling. “It’s like how, during COVID, everybody grew their hair out. Some guys twisted it and braided. David just kept going.

“All I ask is, ‘Just try to keep it out of your eyes, man.’ And he’s done a pretty good job of that. There are times he’s got to put it behind his ears because it is pretty long. I mean, I’m not even sure you can see his name on his jersey now.”

It’s fitting that Shriver’s look is singular because his story itself is one-of-a-kind. He grew up in Philippi, W.V., a town in the north central part of the state, with fewer than 3,000 people and just two stoplights. (“It is considered a city,” Shriver clarified.) He loved the game and the work of basketball, taking no fewer than a thousand shots a day alongside his father. He didn’t play AAU ball and started his college career a short 10-minute drive from his childhood home at Division II Alderson Broaddus University. The twists and turns that led him here, a beloved X-factor off the bench for a potential NCAA Tournament team, are remarkable.

“The average person can relate to him because he’s had to work so hard to get where he’s gotten,” said Randy Shriver, David’s father. “He doesn’t take it for granted. He doesn’t feel entitled. You know, those are the kinds of people that the average person likes to root for.”

David always dreamed of playing college basketball, even when he was just a 5-foot-9 high school freshman who mostly played point guard. He kept growing, to 6-4 by the time he graduated, young, at 17. But with very little exposure and no Division I interest, he didn’t have a ton of options. Shriver decided to stay close to home. At Alderson Broaddus, he knocked down 216 three-pointers in three seasons before being nudged to dream bigger.

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Shriver’s mother, Tina, said she was “scared to death of the portal,” worrying that David was giving up his only chance at a free college education by transferring. But multiple Division I schools came calling. Hartford ultimately beat out UMBC for Shriver’s services.

Shriver knew, as he packed up his life and headed to Connecticut, that there had been rumblings about the university moving from Division I to Division III. But he committed anyway, buying into then-head coach John Gallagher’s vision and culture. Randy and Tina — who work as a district manager and a schoolteacher, respectively — drove nine-and-a-half hours each way each week for home games and traveled to as many road games as they could, too. His family became an extension of the program, and he fit in seamlessly.

“David is one of the most authentic individuals I’ve ever known,” said interim Hartford head coach Tom Devitt, who worked under Gallagher for seven seasons. “He treats queens and commoners exactly the same, which is why people love him so much.”

This is also the point when he stopped cutting his hair regularly. He’d only ever seen his barber in West Virginia, and he didn’t trust anyone else with his precious locks. So he began to grow it out. Meanwhile, the peach fuzz on his upper lip that he’d dealt with early in college turned into a real mustache. As he grew up, his hair grew in.

“It really started to pop,” Shriver said.

Shriver led the America East with 88 made 3-pointers a season ago, shooting nearly 42 percent from beyond the arc. When he entered the portal again at the end of the season with a fifth year of eligibility left to use due to the COVID-19 waiver — Hartford’s move down to D-III had been solidified by then — more than 40 programs showed interest.

“I wanted to be part of something special, a winning culture,” Shriver said. “And a place that wanted me.”

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VCU had been trawling the portal for a court-stretching four-man who could shoot. Shriver’s numbers stuck out to assistant coach Jamal Brunt. The Rams staff learned how much time Shriver had spent in the weight room at his first school to build up strength as body kept growing. They learned how he’d improved so much defensively in his first year in Division I, becoming what Devitt called a “brick wall” to defend the fours and fives in the America East.

Maybe Shriver was a little “more slow-footed and less vertical” than some other potential portal additions, as Rhoades said. But he could be a great fit nonetheless, and that’s what VCU needed coming off a season that ended with an NIT appearance. No one could have predicted the level to which the VCU faithful would embrace him.

Shriver is averaging 8.6 points in 19 minutes per game off the bench for the Rams. He’s shooting nearly 40 percent from three on the season and enters the Atlantic 10 tournament fresh off a 12-point performance (all 3s) in VCU’s win at George Washington last Saturday. The top-seeded Rams likely need to win the A-10 tournament to go dancing this year, and to win three games in three days, they’ll likely need a shooting streak from Shriver. He’s more than capable of getting hot; against preseason A-10 favorite Dayton back in January, he led the Rams back from down 14 at the half with six three-pointers in the second half alone. He’s had some cold stretches, but he heated up last weekend and hopes it can carry over.

“He’s had some games this year where he’s helped us take a six-point lead to 12, 14,” Rhoades said. “He’s made some big threes, so people will talk about his shooting. But it’s his presence on the court that allows other guys more room to operate. Post guys off ball screens. Guys driving the ball. He was so hot in the month of January, people aren’t leaving him. If you don’t pay special attention to him, he’s going to burn you.

“He doesn’t think he should ever miss a shot.”

Randy and Tina Shriver still make the trip to nearly every game. Tina has flown to road games three times this season, but typically they’re driving. Richmond is just four and a half hours from Philippi — a breeze compared to the previous season’s trips to Connecticut.

“I would drive four-and-a-half hours to watch him play a pickup game,” Randy said. “That’s how much I love watching him play.”

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Tina gets emotional each time she watches her son make a shot in a game. It’s not often a parent gets to see their child achieve the very thing he’s dreamed about. She gets emotional now, thinking about how many people back home are rooting for him.

About a week ago, one of Tina’s friends at the local middle school organized “David Shriver Day,” in which all the kids wore black and gold to classes. They wore fake mustaches all day and sent photos and videos of the efforts to Shriver to let him know his hometown has his back.

But of course, it’s not just the folks from Philippi who love Shriver. He’s something of a VCU cult hero due to the combination of his untamed look and affinity for the deep ball. He’s exactly the kind of player casual sports fans fall hard and fast for once March Madness begins. Now, the Rams just need to get there.

“I knew he’d have a fan club because what he brings to the table is so unique,” Devitt said. “He’s 6-7, 225 pounds. He’s this cheerful, incredibly charismatic mountain man who just drains 3 from anywhere on the floor.

“Who’s not going to love that?”

(Photos courtesy of VCU Athletics)

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