Thomas M. Ryan Center, Kingston, RI
Saturday, December 2, 2017
5:00PM (CBSSN)
Media
TV/Stream: CBSSN
Radio:
101.5 (URI)
103.7 (PC)
Previews:
Vegas:
Opponent
Record:
6-1, 0-0 in the Big East
Away: 0-0
Last season: 20-13, 10-8 in the Big East
Rankings:
RPI (expected): 28 (37)
BPI: 29
KenPom: 35
Leaders:
Points - Rodney Bullock, 15.0
Rebounds - Rodney Bullock, 6.3
Assists - Kyron Cartwright, 7.0
Last Five (5-0)
Rider, W 88-84
BC, W 86-66
Belmont, W 66-65
Saint Louis, W 90-63
Washington, W 77-70
Preview
I hate PC. You hate PC. God hates PC.
Please do not lose to PC, again.
Look, this PC team is without their best big man, senior Emmit Holt, who they recently announced will not be back until January. They have a roster with a lot of promising young players who URI will have to deal with for the next several years, but their leading contributors are seniors: forward Rodney Bullock and guards Kyron Cartwright and Jalen Lindsey. Along with sophomore guard Alpha Diallo, these guys are responsible for carrying the load in terms of minutes, points, rebounding and ball handling. The fifth starter has been another sophomore, forward Kalif Young.
There are two things you really have to know about this year's Friars. The first is that they can really shoot. As a team, the Friars are shooting 47% from three; four guys have taken double digit threes, and all are shooting it at 47.6% or better. Bullock, Cartwright and Lindsey have taken the most, and they are shooting 48%, 47.8% and 60%, respectively. That is really good. Fortunately, URI has traditionally defended three well, chasing shooters off the line and closing out rotations to challenge shots. It seems like they may not be built to defend the three quite as well as they have in the past because without Hassan Martin in the middle to protect the rim there is a limit to how aggressively they can challenge shots on the perimeter. It will be interesting to see whether URI can hold PC significantly below their season average from deep - we will probably have to in order to win the game.
The second thing to know is that they are big, even without Holt. They are led by Cartwright, and at 5-11 he is in the mold of the prototype waterbug PC point guard going back to the Abdul Abdullahs , God Shamgods and John Linehans. But he is surrounded with good size - the other four starters are all 6-7 or taller, and nobody getting significant minutes is smaller than 6-3. Unfortunately, this is an area that URI fans have a lot of concern about their team: how well will the interior defense hold up, and will we be able to rebound. Still, despite their size, PC is being slightly outrebounded on the season (216-214) and have lost the rebounding battle in half of their games. By comparison, URI has slightly outrebounded its opponents (191-189), and have lost the rebounding battle twice - the two games played without Langevine in Brooklyn (we were severely outrebounded by Seton Hall, but still won the game). It will be interesting to me to see whether, with Langevine playing, URI can fight PC on the boards close to even. I think we will need to in order to have a chance to win the game.
To this point, URI has played a significantly more difficult schedule than PC - but that is not a knock on PC, URI has played the fifth toughest schedule in the country so it is significantly harder than almost everyone's. PC's 34th ranked SOS to this point means they have been tested a bit, but they have not played a true road game yet. The three senior leaders - Cartwright, Lindey and Bullock - have played enough road games in their careers and have played at the Ryan. But a lot of players PC will need to rely on to win the game have not, and that will be another interesting thing to pay attention to - do they thrive in a hostile environment or do they get rattled?
This game is way more important in the minds of the fans of the two teams than it is from a resume standpoint, but this is still a really good opportunity for both teams to get a quality OOC victory and bolster their at large arguments. For URI fans especially, this is the last meaningful accomplishment on Hurley's to-do list - he has returned the program to stability and then to success, he has won the A10 championship, gotten back to the NCAA tournament, he has won a tournament game, but he has not beat PC. Neither have the seniors on this team that have been responsible for executing Hurley's turnaround. It is too bad that EC cannot play in this game, but for Jared, Jarvis, Stan and Andre this is their last shot.
I'm not going to make a prediction, but mentally and emotionally I kind of need this win. Please do not lose to goddamn PC again.