KeaneyBlue - The URI Basketball Forum

Really glad to see Cyril play well. Huge confidence boost for him and clearly a difference maker for this team moving forward. One thing that still drives me crazy is sometime on the offensive glass, or just in the post facing the hoop he puts the ball on the floor too much lowering his shoulder into defenders and the ball gets stripped or knocked from his hands. If he can continue to improve his offensive skill set..he is going to be a nightmare for opponents.

EC looked rusty, but that’s to be expected. Excited to have him back on the floor!

On to the next!

Haha their coach did not like the way rhody plays defense

Why do so many big guys have a problem with putting the ball on the floor like Cyril does?

I don't get the C of C coach's complaint about the fouling situation. When you look coldly at the stats, they were 12-15 FT's and the Rams were 20-27. But over the last 2 minutes of game, Charleston made purposive fouls to try to get turnovers and the Rams went 9-12 in that span. When you factor in these fouls, the URI FT line drops to 11-15 very comparable to their 12-15. How can you complain about the overall fouls when you committed a significant number of them on purpose?

I noticed that Christion wasn't with the team last night. He's always on the bench. Maybe he went home for break?

Thought I saw him run into the huddle just before the second half started.

PeterRamTime wrote:Why do so many big guys have a problem with putting the ball on the floor like Cyril does?

.......instincts; most big man players, as well as some guards, have the mind set to dribble first to move in space.....there is also an instinctive use of the bounce even when basically stationary to gather the body mechanics to put the pill back up.......which obviously leads to the defenders reacting; smaller players slap at ball brought down low on the dribble, bigger players gain a re-positioning second to attempt block on the put back......very challenging for coaches to reboot kids to go right back up w/o the dribble.....can be done.....

.....and another thing......I miss RoadyJay’s presence at the games.....

Happy they won. If Langevine can build on that performance it would be wonderful.

Dowtin looked like his old self too.

I liked these quotes from Dan before the game and think they hold up well afterwards:

On the way they’re playing: “It’s a long season. We’ve played a brutal schedule. We feel like we could be playing at a higher level and there are things that are fixable. They’re not necessarily talent issues. They’re just mindset issues or things you - eight games into the season, as a coach you can’t get too frustrated because it’s a long season and you want to be playing your best ball when you get to conference play.”

On College of Charleston: “Similar to an Old Dominion team, just with more offense than we saw from those guys. Really strong guards, physical, strong defensive team. Any time you’re playing the best team from another conference - especially a conference that isn’t too dissimilar from yours - you know it’s just going to be a hell of a game to try to win. These guys are good. They’re probably the best team in their league and we’ve got to play a real high-level game to win.”


Also, I think it was Koch who mentioned it in one of his articles, but Charleston just doesn’t turn the ball over, and Rhode Island is very good at making teams do that. Taking that out of their arsenal a little and still winning is a positive sign.




Photos:
http://www.photobyfriday.com/Sports/Bas ... harleston/

Great pics. Hope we get a great crowd for Iona.

Jeez come on with the complaints

Deal with it just like we had to at Nevada and at Bama

Some thoughts....

Cyril is much better when he doesn't put the ball on the floor.....he should stay away from trying to dribble his way to a better shot...either go right up or kick back out to the perimeter...

Harris and Riller were an excellent double threat for CofC.....we never really solved Riller as he was deadly all day.....we did manage to limit Harris by the switch to a healthier Cyril...and pressure on the perimeter to make entry passes to him.....his foul trouble also limited his time....

Dowtin did a great job on Chealy...good win against a good team and shaking off the layoff rust......

EC was what I thought he would be....he will get better and better as the season goes on....

It was great pleasure to see Rod and his wonderful daughter, Andrea, at the game...a great holiday gift...

It was also great to see Tom Penders and chat about the old times...for my money he coached us to the greatest win in Rhody history....beating Syracuse of the hated big east in the Dean Dome....and btw Tom loves Dowtin and thinks he only needs to be a bit more agressive and will have a great career at Rhody....

Full game replay

Da_Process_Survivor wrote:

UCH21377 wrote:That was a good team we played tonight. Don't forget they were missing their best player. We can't get snobby and think we are better than all these "Mid-Major" teams. Langevin was clearly the hero. He played great down the stretch. Really need Terrell to assert himself throughout the game just not in certain spots. He was key in the second half but need him throughout the game.

yawn. they made it tougher on themselves than they needed to.....next

You’re legitimately the worst.

10 day layoff, injuries and lineup changes, playing against an obviously talented opponent that people underrate because of their conference (kind of like us).

Since they made it tough on themselves are you going to start a Baron 3.0 thread? At what point in the year do you decide to call for a coaching change? I know last year it was late November. Just trying to prepare for your wisdom.

Nice job cheer leading Cyril !!

I don't get the people that think this program is so great but then are so impressed with every team we play. I thought CofC was good. I would have liked to beat them better. Why does that make me a moron.

Even DH puts it into perspective that although the injuries and challenges have been there, they have left some opportunities out there that they probably could have seized with a bit of a tweak.

RF1 wrote:Decent sized crowd of 5,761 today. Season average through five games is 5,776. It was 4,916 through five games last year (no PC sellout). Currently running 17% ahead of 2016-17 pace.

Worth noting, URI drew slightly more (5,761) on Saturday for its game with Charleston than PC did (5,742) on Sunday versus Stony Brook.

We have not played really well for a while. Like was said, injuries have played a part....but the shooting has been subpar for the most part.

We can get by for now....but when we play the better teams in conference, on the road especially, we will need to raise our game.

We are not that good that we can just roll the balls out and win every game from here on out. If some believe that, then they are smoking some of the good stuff.

No good stuff here, but...they haven't really 'played' much lately at all... Shooting and overall play might not be looking as smooth as some would like, but they've played just two games in the 17 days prior to this one, with a 10 day layoff. I don't think they ever just roll the balls out, and with continued max effort, I won't be surprised if they don't lose again until tourney time.

NYGFan_Section208 wrote:and with continued max effort, I won't be surprised if they don't lose again until tourney time.

Optimism after my own heart.

NYGFan_Section208 wrote:No good stuff here, but...they haven't really 'played' much lately at all... Shooting and overall play might not be looking as smooth as some would like, but they've played just two games in the 17 days prior to this one, with a 10 day layoff. I don't think they ever just roll the balls out, and with continued max effort, I won't be surprised if they don't lose again until tourney time.

Looked at this last night actually.

Hoping for 22-7 before A10 tourney.

Very achievable as you say with our usual max effort.

hrstrat57 wrote:

NYGFan_Section208 wrote:No good stuff here, but...they haven't really 'played' much lately at all... Shooting and overall play might not be looking as smooth as some would like, but they've played just two games in the 17 days prior to this one, with a 10 day layoff. I don't think they ever just roll the balls out, and with continued max effort, I won't be surprised if they don't lose again until tourney time.

Looked at this last night actually.

Hoping for 22-7 before A10 tourney.

Very achievable as you say with our usual max effort.

If the early season pattern continues, they will go 16-2 in conference, beating everyone but Massachusetts.




(not serious about this at all, but it would continue the only-losing-to-states trend)

I'll take the 16-2 record, but losing twice to UMass would be tough to swallow.

Interior defense remains a big problem. The fact that we defend so aggressively on the perimeter makes our weak interior defense much more noticeable. We give up too many layups in the half court. Stan is a key player inside at 6'4".

Rhody74 wrote:I'll take the 16-2 record, but losing twice to UMass would be tough to swallow.

Yeah I'd rather lose two games to La Salle.

A forgotten accomplishment from last year was sweeping UMass for the first time in over 10 years.

I'd like for us to put a nice little streak on them
Maybe even ruin their tournament chances a few times down the road....

Look, I didn’t make the (fake) rule. I just pointed it out.

rambone 78 wrote:We have not played really well for a while. Like was said, injuries have played a part....but the shooting has been subpar for the most part.

I don't really get what this means. There have been some games where we haven't shot it well, but we've played the 8th toughest schedule in the country and did the hardest part of that without the preseason POY in our conference and some of it without our best big man (or with a severely limited version of him). And yet, here we sit with an RPI hovering around 20 and expected to end up around 30, with wins against some good teams and no losses to bad teams. How bad could we be, really?

Shooting is an easy thing to identify - my wife could say "wow we are missing a lot of shots today" - but there are a lot of other things that go into winning basketball games. We must be doing a bunch of those things reasonably well. If anything, the ability to win games against legitimate teams without having really found our level offensively is encouraging. I am never surprised by the unrelenting insistence on finding the gloom to focus on, but things are actually pretty good right now.

We can get by for now....but when we play the better teams in conference, on the road especially, we will need to raise our game.

We aren't going to play anyone in conference that is as good as the fourth best (and maybe even the fifth best) team we've played so far; there is maybe one A10 team better than the fifth best OOC team we played, and not many A10 teams that are going to appreciably better than UNCA or Charleston. That is seven of our nine games so far! And the last two are both quality opponents, as well. I'm not too worried about not being battle tested for the "better teams" conference play.

We are not that good that we can just roll the balls out and win every game from here on out. If some believe that, then they are smoking some of the good stuff.

Do you honestly think anyone - literally one person, anywhere - thinks that we could just show up and go through the motions and win out the last 20 games? This team may not shoot well every night, but there are only a couple instances I can recall in the six years Hurley has been here that I have questioned our effort. And even with max effort, there is basically zero chance that this team will win its next 20 games. So what is even the point of saying this?

16-2 conf record sign me up for that !!
I doubt it but possible

TruePoint wrote: We aren't going to play anyone in conference that is as good as the fourth best (and maybe even the fifth best) team we've played so far; there is maybe one A10 team better than the fifth best OOC team we played, and not many A10 teams that are going to appreciably better than UNCA or Charleston. That is seven of our nine games so far! And the last two are both quality opponents, as well. I'm not too worried about not being battle tested for the "better teams" conference play.

Can't turn your back on the A10. How many times has URI lost games it was favored in over the past 20 years? Countless.

I'm not predicting an 18-0 conference record. My point isn't that we will just roll thru league play unchallenged. It's that if and when we lose conference games it won't be because we aren't prepared or whatever. We aren't going to play anyone in conference that will just blow our doors off because we weren't ready for that level of play - we've already seen teams better than any we will play in conference multiple times. The nature of college basketball is that you'll lose some of those games regardless how ready for them you are.

^ I just think this team has an identity now...and while losing games they are supposed to win can still happen, it is a much rarer occurrence...

I never said we wouldn't be prepared......we just need to get our shooting eye back.....that is all.....

Rambone, it is totally fair to say "I think this team can shoot better from the floor, and it will need to if it wants to accomplish its highest goals this season." That is an entirely uncontroversial thing to say and I'd agree with you. I just take exception to the idea that "we have not played really well...we will need to raise our game in conference." I don't think I agree with that.

This team is so similar to the Celtics right now. Through injuries and all, still a top of their league. The Celtics win last night reminded me of this C of C win. Celtics and Rams predicted to win easily, but the games were very competitive, took a talented good solid team to pull off a gritty win.

TruePoint wrote:I'm not predicting an 18-0 conference record. My point isn't that we will just roll thru league play unchallenged. It's that if and when we lose conference games it won't be because we aren't prepared or whatever. We aren't going to play anyone in conference that will just blow our doors off because we weren't ready for that level of play - we've already seen teams better than any we will play in conference multiple times. The nature of college basketball is that you'll lose some of those games regardless how ready for them you are.

Hope you're right. Last year I would've never expected to get blown out at home by La Salle and lose to Fordham at home. Can't say we looked prepared/ready for either of those games. In my opinion the expectation for the rest of the season should be to go undefeated at home. Yes we might drop a few on the road but there's really no reason we can't win out the rest of our home games.

Sorry if I missed the details, but when will the Iona 411 be posted?

josephski wrote:

TruePoint wrote:I'm not predicting an 18-0 conference record. My point isn't that we will just roll thru league play unchallenged. It's that if and when we lose conference games it won't be because we aren't prepared or whatever. We aren't going to play anyone in conference that will just blow our doors off because we weren't ready for that level of play - we've already seen teams better than any we will play in conference multiple times. The nature of college basketball is that you'll lose some of those games regardless how ready for them you are.

Hope you're right. Last year I would've never expected to get blown out at home by La Salle and lose to Fordham at home. Can't say we looked prepared/ready for either of those games. In my opinion the expectation for the rest of the season should be to go undefeated at home. Yes we might drop a few on the road but there's really no reason we can't win out the rest of our home games.

Those two games were an anomaly. I truly believe in those two games they came out flat because they thought their at large chances/season was over after losses the game before. That wasn't a talent issue which is what it feels like we've been talking about.

josephski wrote:

TruePoint wrote:I'm not predicting an 18-0 conference record. My point isn't that we will just roll thru league play unchallenged. It's that if and when we lose conference games it won't be because we aren't prepared or whatever. We aren't going to play anyone in conference that will just blow our doors off because we weren't ready for that level of play - we've already seen teams better than any we will play in conference multiple times. The nature of college basketball is that you'll lose some of those games regardless how ready for them you are.

Hope you're right. Last year I would've never expected to get blown out at home by La Salle and lose to Fordham at home. Can't say we looked prepared/ready for either of those games. In my opinion the expectation for the rest of the season should be to go undefeated at home. Yes we might drop a few on the road but there's really no reason we can't win out the rest of our home games.

I think you missed my point entirely. I'm not saying that you're going to get a team that is 100% physically and mentally locked in every single game for the rest of the year. Sports don't work that way. There will likely be some off nights, some flat performances, some frustrating games. All I'm saying is that there isn't anyone left on our schedule that is just going overwhelm us because we haven't seen anyone like that before, and that I don't think we need to "raise our level of play" for the conference - I think our level of play to this point would translate to 15 or 16 wins in the A10 this year. Again, that's not a guarantee or a prediction, because who knows what will happen on any given night once league play starts. But I don't know what anyone could have seen so far to make them worried about A10 play or to think we really have to step up in order to compete in the league. We are doing well already against a much tougher schedule than what we will see in the league.

16-2 in conference play will be very tough . There will be games that we won't shoot well and will have to find a way to win

I predicted 14-4 and hope we will do better than that

NYGFan_Section208 wrote:Sorry if I missed the details, but when will the Iona 411 be posted?

You could start talking about Iona here since the Charleston thread has gone sideways.

Iona is what we expect them to be: offensively minded. According to KenPom, Iona has the 89th best offense but only the 193rd best defense. The most interesting facet that I will pay attention to is the turnovers. URI turns teams over at an amazing rate but Iona doesn't really turn the ball over all that much. Something has to give here, right?

"Everybody" turns it over against the Rhody D....that's just how they roll.

RhodyKyle wrote:Iona is what we expect them to be: offensively minded. According to KenPom, Iona has the 89th best offense but only the 193rd best defense. The most interesting facet that I will pay attention to is the turnovers. URI turns teams over at an amazing rate but Iona doesn't really turn the ball over all that much. Something has to give here, right?

Iona playing now. Deshownee Much is a senior who killed us with his 3 point shooting a couple years ago at the RC. He was originally a Bobby Hurley recruit at Buffalo. You Can’t let him get hot.

ramster wrote:

NYGFan_Section208 wrote:Sorry if I missed the details, but when will the Iona 411 be posted?

You could start talking about Iona here since the Charleston thread has gone sideways.

We will have the Iona thread up by the morning.

Didn't they just play the Johnnies ??

reef wrote:Didn't they just play the Johnnies ??

Yes and played them close
Iona beat our common opponent Holy Cross tonight 82-68. Iona hit 20-37 three pointers for 54%!!!
Could be another Close game at the RC Thursday at 7pm

I will say URI 78-69

ramster wrote:

reef wrote:Didn't they just play the Johnnies ??

Yes and played them close
Iona beat our common opponent Holy Cross tonight 82-68. Iona hit 20-37 three pointers for 54%!!!
Could be another Close game at the RC Thursday at 7pm

If they are going to depend on three point shooting it could be very not close.