districtballer
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URI is the main public research University in the state of Rhode Island and is located in Kingston, RI. It has over 19,000 total students (undergrad and graduate students). It was established in 1892 and is a member of the A-10 basketball conference. As has been rehashed many a time, they share the Ram mascot with us, along with Colorado State.
The Rams of Rhode Island have a rich basketball history with a plethora of NBA players and college coaches that have come out of that institution. NBA players include Lamar Odom and Cuttino Mobley and current college coaches Tom Penders (Houston), Jim Christian (Texas Christian), and Todd Bozeman (Morgan State). The Rams have been to the tournament 8 times in their history and have a record of 6-8 in the NCAA's. Most notably, they went to the Sweet Sixteen in 1988, and to the Elite 8 with Lamar Odom at the helm in 1998.
The Rams are coming off of a 23-11 campaign last year capped off by a NIT run in which they beat MAAC-member Niagara in the first round before falling to eventual champion Penn State in the second round. Like VCU, Rhode Island lost a very significant player this year as Jimmy Baron, the all-time best 3-point shooter in Rhode Island and A-10 history graduated. The son of URI coach Jim Baron was widely considered one of the best 3-point marksmen in the country during his career. Jimmy actually played with Eric Maynor during the NBA Summer League with the Utah Jazz trying to get a spot in the NBA, but was cut and is currently playing in Turkey. Also gone from that team is Kahiem Seawright, a versatile 6'8, 235 pound power forward who was the principal reason for their victory last season against us. He has since graduated and is playing professionally overseas at CB Tarragona in Spain. Both Jimmy and Kahiem scored 17 points against VCU and Kahiem is reason Larry Sanders was in foul trouble all game, ultimately only playing 7 minutes before fouling out.
Rhode Island beat VCU head-to-head last year at the Ryan Center 92-86 in a game in which we were ahead for most of the game and lost. A big part of that was Larry Sanders fouling out and only being able to play 7 minutes the entire game. When he was on the floor, Rhode Island had no answer for him. Kahiem Seawright was able to draw fouls on Sanders and kept him out of the game which allowed Rhode Island to pull off the win. Both Kahiem and Jimmy scored 17 points, but were lead by Keith Cothran's 23 points.
Rhode Island is currently 4-0 on the young season, having wracked up wins against Brown, Holy Cross, Stony Brook and most recently Davidson. They have played a relatively weak schedule and VCU seems to be the first real test for URI. Cothran is now a senior and has stepped up as the leader of Rhode Island, leading the Rams in scoring at 15.3 ppg. Delroy James and Lamonte Ulmer are also averaging double-digits for the Rams at 11.5 and 11.3 ppg respectively. All 5 URI starters average at least 8 ppg (VCU has 5 starters at 8+ as well as Ed Nixon who averages 9.4 off the bench). URI averages 80 points per game (VCU averages 74.8), and gives up 63.8 ppg (VCU allows 66.2 ppg). They average 10.8 turnovers per game, so they take care of the ball fairly well and are very athletic and fast. They do like to play up-tempo, so our pressing game will not surprise them. They are not a good 3-point shooting team at only 27.5% on the season, but shoot 48% from the field. Seeing as our 3-point field goal defense is second in the country right now, I don't think we'll see Rhode Island improve on their numbers this Wednesday. They also will have to find a way around Larry Sanders. If Larry stays in the game, they won't be shooting 48% from the field. While VCU has a lot of depth, so does URI, with 8 players averaging 5 or more points per game (including one-time VCU recruiting target Jamal Wilson).
VCU has played a significantly tougher schedule to this point compared to URI with Oklahoma and Nevada coming into the Siegel Center in the past couple of weeks. URI will have to deal with the hostile crowd at the Siegel Center and Larry Sanders 7'7 wingspan. If they can't hit the 3, they will have to take the ball inside and as every team that has faced VCU knows, that is no easy thing with Larry in the paint. If Larry does get into foul trouble like last year, all prognostications are out the window and this could be anyone's game. Otherwise, Larry and our extremely strong homecourt advantage (85% winning percentage since we opened the Siegel Center 10 years ago) will be too much to overcome for URI. Sure we lost an NBA first-round draft pick in Eric Maynor, but we have another one in Larry, and URI has lost two of the cornerstones of their team in Baron and Seawright, but no future NBA first-rounders on the team are left to fill the void. I say the VCU Rams hand the URI Rams their first loss of the season this Wednesday. VCU by 7 points.
