Game of the Night
Rhode Island Rams 56, Massachusetts Minutemen 61
Anyone who tuned into Rhode Island and Massachusetts’s Tuesday night contest certainly got one heck of a battle. The Minutemen led for the majority of the contest, capitalizing on the injured Rams’ mistakes early on, but Rhode Island was able to fight down the stretch and almost win the game at the end of regulation. Four McGlynn would hit a huge three pointer with just 5 seconds remaining, giving the Rams a 51-50 lead, but Trey Davis would draw a foul and go to the charity stripe where he’d knock down 1 of 2 to force overtime; Massachusetts went just 15-25 (60.0%) from the charity stripe as a team. The overtime session belonged to UMass, as the Minutemen would hit some early buckets and make their free throws down the stretch. They’d hang on to snap a 7 game losing streak and pick up just their second victory in conference play.
Rhode Island was undoubtedly lacking in this one due to the two injuries it recently sustained. Kuran Iverson (concussion) and Jarvis Garrett (jaw) missed Tuesday night’s game due to injuries sustained during last weekend’s petulant contest with St. Joseph’s. As a result of playing short-handed, the Rams had little in means of scoring production; they went just 18-60 (30.0%) from the floor and 3-19 (15.8%) from long range. In addition, they connected on just 17-26 (65.4%) of their free throw attempts. Yikes. Jared Terrell was the only Ram that really had a decent night. He went 7-15 from the floor to lead all scores with 23. Sharpshooter Four McGlynn had one of his worst nights in awhile; despite scoring 13 points and hitting a huge bucket at the end of regulation, he went just 3-16 from the field and 2-12 from long range. Rhode Island has now lost two in a row and will hope to get back on track this weekend when it faces La Salle in Philadelphia.
Massachusetts picked up its first win in a long time when it was able to take down Rhode Island on Tuesday night. The Minutemen hadn’t won a conference game since beating La Salle in their A-10 opener back on January 3rd. Needless to say, they needed this one to go their way. There’s no glaring statistic that says exactly why UMass was able to pull out this victory. Quite frankly, both of these teams had horrible offensive nights. Massachusetts managed to have a slightly better game from the field, going 21-60 (35.0%). In a tightly contested matchup, the final score tends to come down to who made more shots, and on Tuesday night, it was UMass. Both teams were sloppy with the ball (15 turnovers each) and both committed quite a few fouls (Rhode Island 22, UMass 21), so this game wasn’t necessarily pretty to watch. The Minutemen will look to extend on this home win when they travel to Richmond this weekend to face the Spiders.
