A look back at 2017-18

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

To reflect and get excited for Rhody MBB. First up, the Richmond game where Rhody makes it 16 in a row. The play at the end of the video is one of the best all year. Five players touch the ball and the ball never touches the floor.

reef · Unread post by **reef** » 5 years ago

Freaking awesome looking forward to more Cyril monster jams this year

Rhodymob05 · Unread post by **Rhodymob05** » 5 years ago

Maybe the best play I've ever seen in college basketball which included the entire team.

bigappleram · Unread post by **bigappleram** » 5 years ago

The fun part for fans...4 of the 5 guys who touch the ball on that play are all back this year.

Keep the train moving! 3peat

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

15th win in a row. Some nice highlights of Cyril.

reef · Unread post by **reef** » 5 years ago

Nice be a beast Cyril !!

PeterRamTime · Unread post by **PeterRamTime** » 5 years ago

Rhody83 wrote:15th win in a row. Some nice highlights of Cyril.

Hope that's the Cyril we see more often than not now!

We so easily beat Davidson that night. That was the last time Jarvis was a force offensively for he.
We really should not have struggled with Davidson like we did the last two times we played them.
We must have been exhausted by the end of the year.

sf2010 · Unread post by **sf2010** » 5 years ago

Hahaha I still love looking back at that tech that Cyril got for dunking too hard on that guy

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

We talked with Cyril at the awards night in April. He said he was dealing with the injury the entire year. He expected to be 100% healthy by the beginning of May. He is expecting a breakout year come up with his good health.

CHICO 78 · Unread post by **CHICO 78** » 5 years ago

He has to stay healthy this year for the entire season.
We really need for him to contribute consistently. If he can give us
10 ppg and 8 rpg a game it would go a long way to making us
"hard to guard" as Rod would say.

NYGFan_Section208 · Unread post by **NYGFan_Section208** » 5 years ago

CHICO 78 wrote:He has to stay healthy this year for the entire season.
We really need for him to contribute consistently. If he can give us
10 ppg and 8 rpg a game it would go a long way to making us
"hard to guard" as Rod would say.

Kinda think he needs to do better than that...doesn't he?

reef · Unread post by **reef** » 5 years ago

I can see about 12 and 8 with a couple of blocks

theblueram · Unread post by **theblueram** » 5 years ago

Besides Rothstein, I think I see people pegging us for 10th in conference. Jeff, Fatts and Cyril need to take this team over and run.

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

Fatts pumping iron. Benching 235 lbs. “big guard”

reef · Unread post by **reef** » 5 years ago

Freaking awesome video !!

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

I have a controversial take: for one of the greatest seasons in URI basketball history, including a record number of weeks and record-high positions in both polls, an outright conference championship, a nation's best winning streak, a win in the NCAA tournament, and the swan song of a handful of really special and program-changing seniors, my interest in "looking back" at the season is shockingly low. I'm sure over time this feeling will recede and I will look back at this season fondly, but for now my feelings are much more "what could have been" than "how awesome was that?"

In a vacuum, I really, truly don't begrudge coaches for moving on to bigger jobs, and I couldn't be more happy with the way we handled it by installing David Cox - who I really believe in. But, beyond just the obvious insult of a coach leaving URI to go to UConn, I cannot get over the feeling that this team left so much on the table. Maybe they really just peaked too early and ran out of gas, but I have this gnawing feeling that the wheels falling off was not unrelated to the eventual departure of the coach to a hated neighbor. Nothing about Dan going to UConn feels like the traditional thing of a coach has a great year and then after the season a down program with a bigger budget does a search and identifies your guy and offers him an amount of money he can't say no to. It feels much more like the UConn thing came together well before our season ended and from that point on something was just off. I can't claim to have specific evidence of this, but considering the talent on the team and the level they were playing at in January thru mid-February, it is hard to view the last three weeks of the season as anything other than a collapse. And coupled with UConn ousting Ollie when they did, Calhoun hanging around Kingston and Tom Moore being with Dan every day during that period, something was rotten in Denmark. It honestly sucks. As good as the season looks on paper, it felt in early February like something really, truly special was happening that never fully materialized.

rambone 78 · Unread post by **rambone 78** » 5 years ago

Agree with a lot of this TP.

Imo the intensity level took a nose dive toward the end of the season.

We all know they had to play a certain way to win. Hard nosed high intensity style, especially on defense.

The last game against Duke they just mailed it in.....it was very surprising to see. They knew the coach was gone.

ace · Unread post by **ace** » 5 years ago

Or the pieced-together frontcourt- limited by size, injury, and overall ability- did what they could before the magic ran out. Because of how the season went, I think people forget how big of a concern that was prior to the season, and that was before Cyril got hurt. I never realized how blinding the UConn hate is here for some. All I know is guys like Fatts love their former coach and are happy for him. I do a re-watch of DVR’d games each summer over my break, and I’m looking forward to it.

Billyboy78 · Unread post by **Billyboy78** » 5 years ago

TruePoint wrote:I have a controversial take: for one of the greatest seasons in URI basketball history, including a record number of weeks and record-high positions in both polls, an outright conference championship, a nation's best winning streak, a win in the NCAA tournament, and the swan song of a handful of really special and program-changing seniors, my interest in "looking back" at the season is shockingly low. I'm sure over time this feeling will recede and I will look back at this season fondly, but for now my feelings are much more "what could have been" than "how awesome was that?"

In a vacuum, I really, truly don't begrudge coaches for moving on to bigger jobs, and I couldn't be more happy with the way we handled it by installing David Cox - who I really believe in. But, beyond just the obvious insult of a coach leaving URI to go to UConn, I cannot get over the feeling that this team left so much on the table. Maybe they really just peaked too early and ran out of gas, but I have this gnawing feeling that the wheels falling off was not unrelated to the eventual departure of the coach to a hated neighbor. Nothing about Dan going to UConn feels like the traditional thing of a coach has a great year and then after the season a down program with a bigger budget does a search and identifies your guy and offers him an amount of money he can't say no to. It feels much more like the UConn thing came together well before our season ended and from that point on something was just off. I can't claim to have specific evidence of this, but considering the talent on the team and the level they were playing at in January thru mid-February, it is hard to view the last three weeks of the season as anything other than a collapse. And coupled with UConn ousting Ollie when they did, Calhoun hanging around Kingston and Tom Moore being with Dan every day during that period, something was rotten in Denmark. It honestly sucks. As good as the season looks on paper, it felt in early February like something really, truly special was happening that never fully materialized.

Totally agree with this. Dan had every right to pursue any job he wanted. It's how it went down and how it likely affected our team that pisses me off. It feels like Chuck Fairbanks and Bill Parcells to me.

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

Ace, I think any one of the Joe’s loss or the Davidson losses could be explained that way, but for them all to come in succession like that, in light of the other circumstantial evidence surrounding the situation, it makes it feel a certain way. Intellectually, I appreciate what that team gave us, and eventually I’ll be able to appreciate it emotionally, too. I don’t even necessarily hold the situation against anyone on a personal level. Life is complicated and messy, and things don’t go perfectly all the time. I also appreciate how our perspectives differ a bit based on our own personal loyalties, and that’s fine too.

Big picture, they could have won the Joes game and Davidson game to close the regular season, lost to Davidson in the A10 championship, won their opening game and got curb stomped by a Duke-like team in the second round, had Dan get contacted for a big-time job immediately afterwards and take a few days later...and really that scenario is not materially different, on paper, than what actually happened, but it would FEEL a lot different. You can get that or not get that, and that’s probably the difference between being a fan and just being peripherally interested.

hrstrat57 · Unread post by **hrstrat57** » 5 years ago

Agree the team laid down in the Duke game, there was no plan of attack - horrible/ mail it in coaching job by staff.

In fairness Duke IMHO was the worst matchup for RI in the tournament. Still I believe if we had swung the ball around to the corners and had Terrell attack the baseline we could have hung in a 10 point game. But we never could have had an answer for Bagley and company.

Sour taste yes.....especially after the UConn bolt. I still don't get it, never will. Hurley belonged in a Tobacco Road job....

UConn? Yuk.

Go Rhody, let's get it done with the new staff and players. Future is shiny bright in my rose colored glasses.

Unread post by **ATPTourFan** » 5 years ago

Love the hot takes about mailing it in immediately followed by admission that duke was toughest matchup possible. Come on.

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

The Duke game is honestly not my concern. That game was going to be almost unwinnable if they showed up, no matter how we played.

My concern is the end of the regular season and A10 tournament losing 3 of 5, all of which didn’t appear to be tough games on paper for a team that had lost just once in the previous 80-something days. And if you hadn’t dropped those ones, maybe you could have avoided Duke or a team like that for another round or two.

ace · Unread post by **ace** » 5 years ago

Sometimes shit happens and people piece together narratives to try to explain it. And, it’s pointless to discuss it further if people have adopted these narratives as “what actually happened.” I am not lacking comprehension or the ability to “get it.” I hope one particular person, who is professionally objective but also a long-time URI fan, would lay some of these rumors to rest, but that’s not my place to insist.

But DC (and others)is probably already mad that this is in the wrong thread, so later!

hrstrat57 · Unread post by **hrstrat57** » 5 years ago

I guess my point, apparently not clearly made above was that in the 2 biggest moments for our seniors the coaching staff laid a monstrous egg.

Schooled by Phil with the towel thrown in on senior night? I was directly behind the bench I sure wish I was a lip reader during numerous Cox/Hurley exchanges during the St Joe's debacle. Unfair ending to the home careers of some of the finest student athletes to ever put on a Rhody shirt. Hurley owned it of course as he should have. Atrocious. In retrospect I'm more pissed about it now....at the time I was in complete shock along with 7000 other folks in the building.

TruePoint is of course correct, the end of the season hack job for whatever reason lead directly to the Duke matchup.

Francis Ouimet didn't mail it in against Vardon and Herb Brooks had his team ready to play against the USSR.

Hurley vs. Duke was not a good look especially a feature game on national TV with in retrospect way too much hype.

Harrick meltdown vs. Stanford comes to mind again. Ah the life a lifelong Rhody Ram fan, it ain't easy. I really thought we were there this time....I thought this was a sweet 16 club.

Go Rhody.

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

ace wrote:Sometimes shit happens and people piece together narratives to try to explain it. And, it’s pointless to discuss it further if people have adopted these narratives as “what actually happened.” I am not lacking comprehension or the ability to “get it.” I hope one particular person, who is professionally objective but also a long-time URI fan, would lay some of these rumors to rest, but that’s not my place to insist.

But DC (and others)is probably already mad that this is in the wrong thread, so later!

You make it seem like this is InfoWars-level conspiracy theorizing. I think, in light of what we actually know, it is a perfectly reasonable read of the situation to at least suspect something was going on that impacted on-court performance: the presence of Moore, the sightings of Calhoun, the timing on the firing of Ollie, your own admission that UConn was one of three jobs Dan would have left for, the sudden fall-off of the quality of play - all of that taken together paints a certain kind of picture, and isn't rebutted by anything that I am aware of. Yeah, it is a circumstantial narrative pieced together, but not out of whole cloth. It isn't like we could expect to have audio recordings or something - all we can go on is our own observations and intuition. By all means, if you or anyone else knows of something that would clear the air and disprove the narrative, please feel free to share it.

Billyboy78 · Unread post by **Billyboy78** » 5 years ago

Does anyone really trust Jim Calhoun? Do you really think his visits were just of the friendly nature? It's well known that he's a shady character. And we only go by the reports that he was seen several times in Kingston. We don't even know what was going on privately.

eli#10 · Unread post by **eli#10** » 5 years ago

I greatly disagree with the phrase "Harrick meltdown". Arthur Lee went crazy, Mobley was fouled and Luther Clay never fouled on the made layup. Harrick had nothing to do with Stanford's unbelievable comeback. It still sickens me to this day. Yours truly was 3 rows behind the bench in St Louis and saw it all in person.

wpbrown8267 · Unread post by **wpbrown8267** » 5 years ago

eli#10 wrote:I greatly disagree with the phrase "Harrick meltdown". Arthur Lee went crazy, Mobley was fouled and Luther Clay never fouled on the made layup. Harrick had nothing to do with Stanford's unbelievable comeback. It still sickens me to this day. Yours truly was 3 rows behind the bench in St Louis and saw it all in person.

It was the perfect storm (in a bad way). My dad was literally ready to call for tickets to San Antonio. Arthur Lee hitting circus shots, Mobley getting mugged, Madsen who I still think was a juice head, Tyson missing those free throws, it was literally a wtf moment in a minute. We sat in our livng room in silence for like an hr. My dad just looking at the ground.

Rhody74 · Unread post by **Rhody74** » 5 years ago

Ace, regardless of Dan’s motivations, for many of us, g taking the UConn job is akin to taking a job at PC. It will always be hard to swallow.

steviep123 · Unread post by **steviep123** » 5 years ago

eli#10 wrote:I greatly disagree with the phrase "Harrick meltdown". Arthur Lee went crazy, Mobley was fouled and Luther Clay never fouled on the made layup. Harrick had nothing to do with Stanford's unbelievable comeback. It still sickens me to this day. Yours truly was 3 rows behind the bench in St Louis and saw it all in person.

Slight correction - it was Reynolds-Dean who was called for a foul he didn't commit (on Madsen's dunk after Arthur Lee's "steal" off Mobley, when Lee was obviously trying to foul to stop the clock), but I 100% agree with this. Mobley was 100% fouled. Any ref in a final 8 game should make that call.

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

Wow, I started this thread because there were so many great momemts last year that I enjoy rewatching. I agree with Ace here. Some of the points from others are exaggerated. Sports teams often have streaks both good and bad. TP’s I would be ok that the underminding of the coach leaving would’ve been disproved if Rhody just went 17-1 in A10 season (beating Joe’s & Davidson) doesn’t seem realistic. They weren’t as good as their 15 game win streak or as bad as the 3-5 finish. Dan admitted to making a few mistakes down the stretch. Specifically, the celebration after clinching the A10 and how that impacted the Joe’s game. If they were in the mail it in phase, please explain the comeback and OT win over Oklahoma. They really had one stinker game all year - St Joe’s. Btw, to say that was the most important game of the year is a joke. They had already clinched the A10. Hiw about PC, Seton Hall, Oklahoma, at VCU, Davidson at home ..... The players’ emotion of Sr Night also had a negative impact on thst night.

Regarding Calhoun, I believe he visited Kingston once. He has a house at Gree Hill Beach. Dan looks up to HoF coaches. The Moore comments seem far fetched. He had left UCONN 10 years ago. He was looking for a job in the Northeast after being fired at QU. Dan had an opening because ARD left. Nothing more than that. Moore’s goal was to get back to HC as soon as possible somewhere.

Regarding the timing of the Ollie firing, when did you expect them to fire him. Their season was over. The lost early in the AAC tournament. Two losing seasons in a row. Please.

Take a look at the Duke starting 5 to URI. Total mismatch. Four Duke starters were drafted this year (three 1st rounders & one 2nd). Rhody had none. Duke’s starting lineup of NBAers went, 6’11”, 6’10”, 6’6”, 6’5’ & 6’3”. Their top two bench players were 6’11” & 6’10”. Total mismatch. The Rhody players lost their extra drive when they got down big early. Emotion has an impact knowing your college career is coming to an end.

Dan gave URI and those Sr everything he had. He would never let them down. I believe his comments and his emotions at the press conference after. He had blocked everything out other than URI basketball. He loves those players.

josephski · Unread post by **josephski** » 5 years ago

TruePoint wrote:I have a controversial take: for one of the greatest seasons in URI basketball history, including a record number of weeks and record-high positions in both polls, an outright conference championship, a nation's best winning streak, a win in the NCAA tournament, and the swan song of a handful of really special and program-changing seniors, my interest in "looking back" at the season is shockingly low. I'm sure over time this feeling will recede and I will look back at this season fondly, but for now my feelings are much more "what could have been" than "how awesome was that?"

In a vacuum, I really, truly don't begrudge coaches for moving on to bigger jobs, and I couldn't be more happy with the way we handled it by installing David Cox - who I really believe in. But, beyond just the obvious insult of a coach leaving URI to go to UConn, I cannot get over the feeling that this team left so much on the table. Maybe they really just peaked too early and ran out of gas, but I have this gnawing feeling that the wheels falling off was not unrelated to the eventual departure of the coach to a hated neighbor. Nothing about Dan going to UConn feels like the traditional thing of a coach has a great year and then after the season a down program with a bigger budget does a search and identifies your guy and offers him an amount of money he can't say no to. It feels much more like the UConn thing came together well before our season ended and from that point on something was just off. I can't claim to have specific evidence of this, but considering the talent on the team and the level they were playing at in January thru mid-February, it is hard to view the last three weeks of the season as anything other than a collapse. And coupled with UConn ousting Ollie when they did, Calhoun hanging around Kingston and Tom Moore being with Dan every day during that period, something was rotten in Denmark. It honestly sucks. As good as the season looks on paper, it felt in early February like something really, truly special was happening that never fully materialized.

I'm not sure when the team found out but I still think the long hug between Fatts and Hurley when Fatts fouled out during the Duke game was somewhat telling. Even my cousin, who knows nothing about URI but was watching the game, texted me asking if Fatts was a senior. I could be reading way too much into it but it definitely seemed like a farewell between Fatts and Hurley.

Also the whole senior night thing didn't seem right as well. I know people here love to make excuses and say stuff like "these types of games happen" but if I remember correctly that was the second worst loss ever by a ranked team at home. It probably was the worst loss ever by a ranked team on senior night. It's either incredibly coincidental that we had the worst loss ever by a ranked team on senior night and our head coach left at the end of the season or the two are related.

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

I am not suggesting anyone "mailed it in." Sports is a funny thing. When you're locked in, you can do stuff like pull games out of your ass to win a game you had no business winning and prolong a win streak. When you're not, you can fail to make a play here or a play there and lose a game you had no business losing. Anything can get you from a place of being locked in to a place of being "off." It could be a fight with your significant other, or news about a sick family member, or a non-basketball disagreement between team members. I think suspicions that your coach was maneuvering his exit at the point in the season where everything was about to pay off could cause that kind of disturbance in the force. It doesn't take much, and it doesn't have to be a conscious thing. I don't believe any player or any coach decided not to try anymore at a certain point in the season. But I do think they took their eye off the ball, and they lost whatever intangible thing that had carried them for most of the year, and they could never quite get it back. If you've ever had that feeling of being in the zone and then something happened to break your concentration, that is the phenomenon that I think happened with this team.

NYGFan_Section208 · Unread post by **NYGFan_Section208** » 5 years ago

josephski wrote:
TruePoint wrote:I have a controversial take: for one of the greatest seasons in URI basketball history, including a record number of weeks and record-high positions in both polls, an outright conference championship, a nation's best winning streak, a win in the NCAA tournament, and the swan song of a handful of really special and program-changing seniors, my interest in "looking back" at the season is shockingly low. I'm sure over time this feeling will recede and I will look back at this season fondly, but for now my feelings are much more "what could have been" than "how awesome was that?"

In a vacuum, I really, truly don't begrudge coaches for moving on to bigger jobs, and I couldn't be more happy with the way we handled it by installing David Cox - who I really believe in. But, beyond just the obvious insult of a coach leaving URI to go to UConn, I cannot get over the feeling that this team left so much on the table. Maybe they really just peaked too early and ran out of gas, but I have this gnawing feeling that the wheels falling off was not unrelated to the eventual departure of the coach to a hated neighbor. Nothing about Dan going to UConn feels like the traditional thing of a coach has a great year and then after the season a down program with a bigger budget does a search and identifies your guy and offers him an amount of money he can't say no to. It feels much more like the UConn thing came together well before our season ended and from that point on something was just off. I can't claim to have specific evidence of this, but considering the talent on the team and the level they were playing at in January thru mid-February, it is hard to view the last three weeks of the season as anything other than a collapse. And coupled with UConn ousting Ollie when they did, Calhoun hanging around Kingston and Tom Moore being with Dan every day during that period, something was rotten in Denmark. It honestly sucks. As good as the season looks on paper, it felt in early February like something really, truly special was happening that never fully materialized.
I'm not sure when the team found out but I still think the long hug between Fatts and Hurley when Fatts fouled out during the Duke game was somewhat telling. Even my cousin, who knows nothing about URI but was watching the game, texted me asking if Fatts was a senior. I could be reading way too much into it but it definitely seemed like a farewell between Fatts and Hurley.

Also the whole senior night thing didn't seem right as well. I know people here love to make excuses and say stuff like "these types of games happen" but if I remember correctly that was the second worst loss ever by a ranked team at home. It probably was the worst loss ever by a ranked team on senior night. It's either incredibly coincidental that we had the worst loss ever by a ranked team on senior night and our head coach left at the end of the season or the two are related.

Agree with all of this, except, doesn't matter to me 'where' he went - whether it was a hated rival or not. It seems timing of who knew what/when was of definite impact.

bigappleram · Unread post by **bigappleram** » 5 years ago

Literally 2 minutes after our Duke loss Zags posted Hurley was gonzo to Uconn. 2 minutes. I know bc i replied 'too soon'. C'mon if you think that wasn't a done deal already. Andrea as she left the team hotel to board the bus following the loss to Duke said very loudly to numerous fans (including me) "I will do everything I can to keep him here." Whether it impacted the team, or on-court performance, is impossible to tell. But you are blowing smoke up your own ass if you think that conversations had not already taken place (even at just an Agent to Uconn level). This isn't circumstantial, there is tangible proof it happened. To make the leap that those innuendos and whispers didn't effect the kids is not a big one to make. Yes Duke was better than us, but they weren't 40 points better.

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

I thought TP set up an everything Hurley thread. It seems every few months someone resurfaces their hurt from Hurley leaving. We had a great year last year. On of the best ever and your thought is what could’ve been if we beat St Joe’s and Davidson on the road.

Moving on.

PeterRamTime · Unread post by **PeterRamTime** » 5 years ago

I don't think our collapse had much at all to do with the Uconn situation.
Maybe Dan was distracted by it towards the end of the year if he knew he was going to leave.

I think we collapsed because under Dan, our teams have always had a kind of bipolar issue with dealing with situations.

In 16/17 it took until the Fordham debacle for R.E.M. To finally start playing good basketball. That team with all the professional basketball players on it, should not have needed a crazy rally at the end of the year to make the tournament.

Last year we had confidence all year and we completely changed our tune when we lost to the Bonnie's. When our streak was broken we were done.
We should've lost to La Salle as well. We got soooo lucky in that game.
EC was in his head, Jared Terrell got cold, the whole team was just off on offense the rest of the way. Except for the Dayton game. That was great, but then again we got bipolar and had too much of a high going into St Joe's and one of the best Rhody teams ever got beat by 30. That was inexcusable. I don't know how you can manage that. The teams mental capacity just seemed fragile. Especially with the older guys. They could be great but it wouldn't take much for them to lose it. It also seems like the constant man to man pressure took its toll on some guys. Then again that didn't seem to bother the 16/17 team at the end.
I just think they simply lost their groove last year and it's likely that has to do with how Dan coaches.
I'm not on the resentment for Dan bandwagon either. It just seems to me the main weaknesses evident in his coaching was how his teams had so many ups and downs.
The only reason we beat Oklahoma was because they were less confident than we were.

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

Rhody83 wrote:I thought TP set up an everything Hurley thread. It seems every few months someone resurfaces their hurt from Hurley leaving. We had a great year last year. On of the best ever and your thought is what could’ve been if we beat St Joe’s and Davidson on the road.

Moving on.

What are we doing if not looking back on the year? Speaking only for myself, when the season ended my first focus was on what was Dan going to do and then immediately shifted to how URI was going to replace him, and I never really looked back and tried to process it all as a whole. Right now, my emotional response to the season is that it was a disappointment. I feel bad for feeling that way, because there were a lot of great moments and like I said, on paper it was one of URI's best seasons ever. And I appreciate you posting the videos for posterity, because at some point I will want to relive all of the fun stuff. My thoughts on the season are not solely related to Dan, which is why I didn't post them in the Dan Hurley thread. Dan factors in, obviously, but what I've said here relates to the URI basketball season generally, not just Dan Hurley.

79RhodyFan · Unread post by **79RhodyFan** » 5 years ago

I was told the night of the St Bonnie's away game by someone who knew someone inside the Athletic department that Hurley was definitely leaving after the season. My friend couldn't say who told him but he was definite. At the time I didn't think much of it because I figured how could anyone know that at this point of the season. Now looking back since they turned out to be correct maybe it was known during the season that Hurley was leaving.

reef · Unread post by **reef** » 5 years ago

We definitely peaked too early. I don't think that the speculation of DH leaving hurt us until the NCAA tourney but by then our fate was sealed by the Duke matchup

The thing that stung the most was that our collapse killed our seed and blew a great shot at making the second weekend

NYGFan_Section208 · Unread post by **NYGFan_Section208** » 5 years ago

reef wrote:We definitely peaked too early. I don't think that the speculation of DH leaving hurt us until the NCAA tourney but by then our fate was sealed by the Duke matchup

The thing that stung the most was that our collapse killed our seed and blew a great shot at making the second weekend

Blowing the seed was the suckiest part...that happened before we got to Duke tho...

Rhody83 · Unread post by **Rhody83** » 5 years ago

TP, how can you say the season was a disappointment? That is shocking to me. It was one of the best overall seasons ever. It was definitely the best season in the last 18 years. Sounds like you are going to be disappointed a lot. List all the major accomplishments and then put Disappointment at the top & bottom of the list. I will start with a few:

Disappointment is...
Longest winning streak in school history
First time winning the A10 Regular Season
NCAA birth
Beating PC for the first time in 8 years
Longest # of week’s in the top 25
Beating VCU on the road
Highest regular season ranking in school history
15-3 in A10
Highest RPI ranking in school history
Beating ranked Seton Hall at the buzzer
Beating Oklahoma in the Tournament
What a disappointing year!

NYGFan_Section208 · Unread post by **NYGFan_Section208** » 5 years ago

Thanks for the refresh, '83.
Weird season...during a good part of it...was thinking Sweet 16...and constantly playing "Let the Good Times Roll"...and then, it just kinda glummed out a bit...happens, good overall season, not a great last couple weeeks.

But, I'm not going to be pre-disappointed. Am expecting big things again this year!

theblueram · Unread post by **theblueram** » 5 years ago

Rhody83 wrote:TP, how can you say the season was a disappointment? That is shocking to me. It was one of the best overall seasons ever. It was definitely the best season in the last 18 years. Sounds like you are going to be disappointed a lot. List all the major accomplishments and then put Disappointment at the top & bottom of the list. I will start with a few:

Disappointment is...
Longest winning streak in school history
First time winning the A10 Regular Season
NCAA birth
Beating PC for the first time in 8 years
Longest # of week’s in the top 25
Beating VCU on the road
Highest regular season ranking in school history
15-3 in A10
Highest RPI ranking in school history
Beating ranked Seton Hall at the buzzer
Beating Oklahoma in the Tournament
What a disappointing year!

It was a good year. But one would think with all those accomplishments we would have at least a Sweet 16 banner. NCAA or Bust!

Unread post by **TruePoint** » 5 years ago

Rhody83 wrote:TP, how can you say the season was a disappointment? That is shocking to me. It was one of the best overall seasons ever. It was definitely the best season in the last 18 years. Sounds like you are going to be disappointed a lot. List all the major accomplishments and then put Disappointment at the top & bottom of the list. I will start with a few:

Disappointment is...
Longest winning streak in school history
First time winning the A10 Regular Season
NCAA birth
Beating PC for the first time in 8 years
Longest # of week’s in the top 25
Beating VCU on the road
Highest regular season ranking in school history
15-3 in A10
Highest RPI ranking in school history
Beating ranked Seton Hall at the buzzer
Beating Oklahoma in the Tournament
What a disappointing year!

It’s all relative to expectations. If you told me in October how the season was going to go, I’d have been satisfied; if you told me right after the Nevada game how the rest of the season would go, I’d have been ecstatic; and if you told me on February 26th how the season would go from then until the Duke game, I’d have cried.

I don’t know how I could explain how I feel differently than I already have above, but intellectually I know that this was a terrific season on paper and there were some of my greatest moments as a fan in a long time, but the way the season fizzled out after feeling like we were on the doorstep of a once in a lifetime season, it takes some of the shine off of it. And that’s not even taking into account the circumstances surrounding the collapse, which I’ll never be convinced didn’t impact it. I’m sure that, like everything else, with the proper distance I’ll remember this season more fondly than not, but for now I’m not over the fact that this team had a truly special season in their grasp and they let it get away, for whatever reason.

If you take away from what I’ve said here that I’ll be disappointed a lot, I’m not doing a good enough job explaining myself. The failure to cash in on a historic opportunity is what is disappointing, not the list of accomplishments. If the 2018-19 team accomplishments are half as impressive I will be over the moon. I view what URI did last year as basically the same as if the Sox win 115 games and then are swept out of the ALDS by the Indians. Yes, sure, by some definition if you win 115 games you didn’t have a bad year, but ultimately it will not feel very fulfilling.

UCH21377 · Unread post by **UCH21377** » 5 years ago

I am not excited about seeing clips from last year either, for whatever reason. I heard the same thing about Hurley from some old CT friends (that Hurley was chosen before Ollie was fired). Who knows if/how it affected the team. I think playing against bigger guys all year can wear players out (JT,SR,EC), and maybe they just ran out of gas late in the A10 season. The Duke matchup sucked. We had no answer for their zone.

theblueram · Unread post by **theblueram** » 5 years ago

Looking forward to not having a 4 guard line up. Get the size, get the muscle.

RhowdyRam02 · Unread post by **RhowdyRam02** » 5 years ago

For all the talk about Duke being a horrible matchup, which is true, we got one of the best possible matchups for us in the first round

reef · Unread post by **reef** » 5 years ago

Season definitely not a disappointment especially since we ended up winning a NCAA tourney game

I think we had a better team last year that lost to Duke but the year before we peaked at end of year and should have beaten Oregon to go to the Sweep 16

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