An Attendee's Highlights of URI Bouncing the Bonaventure Bonnies Backwards
In today's 71-59 URI victory that puts the Rams at 13-7 overall and 5-3 in conference, the student body was a strong driving force. With the first home game back and students returning from winter break, the Ryan Center contained a strong 6,757 in attendance. Sitting in the second row closest to the court, I was right back into the action and experiencing the familiar roller-coaster of emotions at a Rhode Island home game. In my preview of this Saturday's big A10 game, I begged the question, would URI bounce back against a booty Bonnies team? My answer to this question was yes, the Rhode Island Rams came back to Kingston with a relatively strong performance and St. Bonaventure is just as overrated and terrible as I originally thought. There was only one time in the game where the Bonnies had a realistic opportunity to make a comeback after falling behind early on in the game.
From a Rhode Island perspective, there were many plays and highlights that keyed their essential victory. I, along with all other Rams fans, needed to see a desperate team on the court, fighting for the rest of their season to realistically continue into the postseason. To start, Stanford Robinson and Cyril Langevine were both unsung heroes in the home victory who would probably will not get enough credit for the plays that made that do not show up in any box score. Robinson showed why he wanted to come to play for the team in Kingston when he came up with a big steal and assist to Jared Terrell to put Rhody up at 45-33 and the crowd erupted after he drew a charge as the Rams were hanging onto a 60-52 lead. With the Bonnies scoring on back-to-back possessions, Langevine drew a key charge on Jaylen Adams, good for Adams' 4th foul of the game.
Old reliable, Hassan Martin came up with 20 massive points, including a three-point jumper that had the crowd going crazy and gave URI a commanding 37-22 lead. Following a 55-50 dwindling lead, Rhode Island needed to stepped up and who else could it be other than #12? On consecutive URI offensive possessions, Hassan Martin drew 2 and-one's and totaled 5 points of it (1-2 at the line). In addition, Kuran Iverson finished with a solid 12 points and 9 rebounds, after appearing to be a bit over aggressive to start the game. Furthermore, Jared Terrell played an acceptable game, totaling 12 points himself and all but clinching the victory for the Rams with his and-one layup to make it 63-54.
In some other miscellaneous observations, Nicola Akele was tumbling down the court in the first half and almost fell flat on his face. Also, the Ramettes did an entertaining hip-hop dance at halftime to Lil Jon's "Snap Yo Fingas".
With all the positives that the Rhode Island faithful can take from this game, there are still causes for concern going forward. E.C. Matthews scoring 13 points on 3-of-12 shooting is close to unacceptable at this point. In addition, he had a team-high 5 turnovers (on reckless drives into the lane filled with defenders) of the team's 17 turnovers. A missed layup on a 3-on-2 fast break by Matthews at 3:19 left in the first half and URI in the lead 26-19, left Matthews with his hands on his head at the media timeout. 5 turnovers for one player is far too many and 17 turnovers is far too many for a team that expects to remain in contention for a spot in the NCAA tournament, among other things. If URI is able to eliminate the unforced turnovers that they make due to careless passes in the middle of block parties, they will have a much easier road.
Reflecting on the performance of Saint Bonaventure, I need to direct my talk to Josh Ayeni, a freshman forward who played 29 minutes in this contest for the Bonnies. I may not play college basketball but I know what NOT to do in a college basketball game in certain situations. Therefore, to Mr. Ayeni, let me learn you something. When you get 10 points on 4-13 from the field, with 2 turnovers and 4 personal fouls, this is what I like to call being a DETRIMENT to your team. When you are trailing 49-35, do not pick a fight with Christion Thompson just because it's his birthday. Finally, with the game clearly over and you ready to take an embarrassing 12-point loss on the road, why are you picking a fight with Young Jeff? He'll continue to run circles around like just like he did all day. My teaching is done for the day.
Besides Ayeni, thank you to Matt "I'm Absolute Trash in Every Sense of the Word" Mobley for going 1 for 10 from the field. Mobley contributed even more than Ayeni to the Bonnies 29.5% field goal percentage. 29.5%!? I saw a lot of toddlers in the crowd who could have shot that percentage. Even St. Bona's star player, Jaylen Adams scored his team-high 25 points on a woeful 6-15 shooting day. At some point, the classy Bonnies fans brought out a cowbell (a banned item) to distract Rhode Island players during their free throws. Nothing could save this team on this day at the Ryan Center. Good bye Saint Bonaventure, I would take a nice vacation up with you to New York but no one in the world wants to go to Olean, NY for vacation. Not to mention, before arriving to the game, my sister asked me with the most innocent look, "What school is Saint Bonaventure"? Nuff said ...
Just like his teammates Jaylen (Jalen?) Adams and Denzel Gregg (Greg?), I think Idris Taqqee spelled his last name wrong, am I right? I will let you determine that.
