Thomas M. Ryan Center, Kingston, RI
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
7:00PM
Media
TV/Stream: FIOS 820 (Stadium) (Update: Nope)
http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb14923661.htm
Radio: (no radio listed on gorhody.com as of 11/27)
Previews:
Projo
Independent
Vegas:
Opponent
Record:
4-2, 0-0 in the Ivy League
Away: 2-2
Last season: 13-17, 4-10 in the Ivy League
Rankings:
RPI (expected): 317 (277)
BPI: 279
KenPom: 266
Leaders:
Points - Brandon Anderson, 20.8
Rebounds - Travis Fuller, 7.2
Assists - Brandon Anderson, 4.2
Last Five
@Bryant, W 81-67
LIU, W 94-86
@Stony Brook, L 77-64
@St. Francis, NY, L 77-74
@Quinnipiac, W 79-72
Johnson & Wales, W 106-78
Preview
As many of our posters here are aware, in-state Brown is URI's most played opponent in its basketball history. The series has not been competitive enough to be called a rivalry in its modern history, but only UConn, UMass, PC and St. Joes have beaten URI more times than Brown (53). Brown has played URI relatively tough in recent years - in 2016-17, in a game played at Brown, a shorthanded URI had to mount a furious comeback to win in OT. URI last lost to Brown during Jim Baron's miserable final season, falling 66-56 at the Pizzitola Center (a bookend of sorts - the previous time URI lost to Brown, also at the Pizzitola Center was during Baron's first season at URI in 2001-02). Brown has not won at URI since 1982-83, in the midst of one of the lowest periods in the program's history (URI went 42-97 (.302) between 1981-82 and 1985-86; this was sandwiched by two of the programs' high water marks in the late 70s and late 80s). Brown has never won at the Ryan Center.
I was disappointed to see that my favorite factoid for Brown basketball over the last few years has graduated and moved on, along with several other contributors to Brown's 16-17 team that finished 6th in the Ivy League. Without their leading scorer and famous golf sibling Steven Spieth, leading assist man Tavon Blackmon and dead-eye shooting specialist JR Hobbie returning from last season's squad, Brown has opened the season 4-2 behind their trio of young guards Brandon Anderson, Zach Hunsaker and Desmond Cambridge stepping into the void.
Those three guards have accounted for nearly 60% of the Bears' scoring in the early part of the season, averaging 20.8, 13.0 and 13.5, respectively. Of the three, only the sophomore Anderson has been a threat from the perimeter, hitting from three at 34.5%, but all three account for a big portion of the team's shots from the floor and all shoot around 40% overall from the floor. The freshman Cambridge is the best rebounder of the three, getting 4.5 boards per game, but all do rebound (Anderson and Hunsaker get 3.7 per game each).
The guards have been joined in the starting lineup by forwards Travis Fuller, a junior, and Tamenang Choh, a freshman from Lowell, MA who played at the Brooks School and was the 25th ranked player in Massachusetts according to NERR. In their last game, against Bryant, Choh played only 14 minutes and grabbed three rebounds with one assist and three turnovers without taking a single shot from the floor or the line. For the season, Choh has put up a line of 4.0/3.0/0.7 and at only 6-5 doesn't seem likely to pose a lot of problems for URI at this point in his career. Fuller, the other starting forward, does lead the team in rebounding at 6-9, grabbing 7.2 boards per game to go along with a workmanlike 8.7 points in just under 20 minutes per contest.
The first two guys off the bench are forwards Joshua Howard, a sophomore, who plays starter minutes (23.3) and makes solid contributions as a scorer (8.2) and rebounder (4.8); and freshman Matt DeWolf, a Barrington native who played at BHS before finishing at Northfield Mount Hermon, who is playing solid minutes for a frosh (13.7) and making his primary contribution on the glass (4.5) early in his career. The backup guards are an experienced group compared to the first string backcourt and their forward benchmates - juniors Obi Okolie and Chris Sullivan and senior Jason Massey all play 12 or 13 minutes on average and are good for about 11 points, a half dozen boards and a couple of assists between them. In Brown's 81-67 win at Bryant last week, the entire bench combined for just 10 pts and 4 assists, but did help on the glass with 14 rebounds.
Look, URI should win this game. RPI Forecast sees a 20+ point URI win, and if Vegas does a line for this game I would expect it to look much the same. This Brown game - by far the biggest mismatch on our schedule until we see Duquesne in late January - could not come at a better time for URI as it comes back from a highly competitive neutral site tournament over Thanksgiving and readies itself for the rivalry game against hated Providence this weekend. Nobody that is feeling so much as an ache should see the floor for Rhody, so I wouldn't expect to see the return of big man Cyril Langevine (although I've been wrong before). It shouldn't matter. URI needs to show up for this game, but really only so that it maintains some sharpness and so it can build a lead that will allow starters to rest and get needed minutes for rusty subs. Brown has some promising young players that could eventually make the Bears a bit more threatening in the next few years, but they're not there yet. I like Rhody to handle its business and win fairly easily.