An Attendee Gets Badly Betrayed?
November 17, 2016 was held with promises by the Rhody Ruckus of 20 ticket packages and free transportation that would be sold to exclusively Rhody Ruckus members at midnight. Well, according to what I saw, either midnight is no longer 12 am or the Fairly Odd-Parents magically showed up and bought all 20 ticket packages because the ticket packages never even appeared on the Ruckus Rewards website or app on any day of November. Also, there was a limit of 1 ticket package per Ruckus member. The sad fact is I know people like myself that would have paid actual money for the tickets and not "800 Reward points". I still have plenty of love for the Rhody Ruckus but no one told me that many children's favorite cartoon characters lived in the Kingston area.
Going into the first weekend of December, a familiar buzz arose around Rhode Island because #21 URI was getting set to do battle with Providence in a classic Ocean State rivalry game. Surely, as a ranked team, the Rhode Island Rams would finally defeat Ed Cooley's team under the lead of Dan Hurley. Sadly again, I was wrong again. Blind faith much?
With a blistering start to the first half of the December 3rd battle at the Dunk, everyone watched the FS1 broadcast as Rhode Island held a clear advantage in the paint over the Friars much smaller and less physical defenders. Watching from the entirely student-filled Ram's Den (broadcasted on a gargantuan projector), I was impressed with the start to the game. Midway through the first half, Jared Terrell hit a wild AND-ONE and hit a nice shimmy shake for the PC cheerleaders while he was still sitting on the hardwood. Clearly, all was well with the Rams in the first half at Dunk and they were in clear control of the game. Time and again, URI imposed their will and their tempo on the Friars but PC kept fighting back late. Kyron Cartwright kept the Providence team in the game in the first half, with URI only holding a 35-29 lead at halftime. Shortly thereafter, when everyone in the student-filled Ram's Den received free ice cream sandwiches and miniature URI flags, everyone's heart was filled with content. Too bad no one else ate another ice cream sandwich when they witnessed the second half. If you can't eat an ice cream sandwich, all is not right with the world.
As the second half began, it was clear that the Rams donning their alternate Midnight Navy jerseys were losing their magic rapidly. With the blows still going back-and-forth, PC started pulling forward with under 6 minutes left to go. Out of nowhere, Jalen Lindsey looked like the best player on the court and scored 9 monumental points in the 2nd half, which would prove pivotal for the Friars. With PC scoring big basket after big basket at the end of the game, they still missed key free throws that gave URI a small glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, with the game in Providence's favor at a score of 63-60, E.C. Matthews missed the half-court heave to tie the game with no time remaining. Another tough L for the Rams in this bitter battle and their non-conference resume was HURTING. Despite a big 14 points and 17 rebounds from Hassan Martin, URI could not do enough as a team to beat PC yet again.
Meanwhile, the PC mascot was celebrating another Ocean State win for the Friars, it looked a little like this:
