URI Doesn't Dilly-Dally with Davidson
On the cold, wintry Friday night of February 3, 2017, the Rhode Island Rams were in no position to trip up and lose any more ground in the Atlantic 10 race. Without Jarvis Garrett (undisclosed stomach illness) playing for the sixth straight game, the Rams would eventually need a couple of veterans to lead the way in this game. Luckily, Hurley got one veteran and some young blood to lead his team to a gritty 70-59 road victory at Belk Arena in North Carolina.
From the tip, the officiating was tight for both sides. For the Davidson Wildcats #40, Andrew McAuliffe, he earned 3 very quick fouls early in the first half and was relegated to the bench. On the other side, Jared Terrell played sparingly as he picked up 2 early fouls to start the game as well as his third and his fourth on controversial calls. In addition, Stanford Robinson's lockdown defense was not able to be used by Coach Hurley as much as he would have wanted because Robinson had 3 of his own personal fouls early in the second half. Overall, several players from both teams would find themselves in foul trouble during the physical game they endured.
Going into the game, with Davidson not having an active Nathan Ekwu, I predicted URI's game plan on offense to be attacking the paint as much as possible. Funnily enough, the Rams did almost the complete opposite and it managed to work against a Wildcats team that had the speed to keep up on the perimeter. In particular, Jeff "Jefe" Dowtin single handedly kept the Rams in the first half with his 12 first half points and URI went into halftime with a 34-33 lead, though the Wildcats had several opportunities to run away with the game. Meanwhile, with just 9 points from Hassan Martin and 4 from Kuran Iverson, the URI frontcourt production was kept to a minimum.
In the second half of this A10 matchup, Dan Hurley was still waiting on a veteran to step up in this crucial game and deliver. While Dowtin kept his strong performance up (finishing with a career-high 19 points), it was the Rams #0 who stepped up for the big shots down the stretch. Starting with a hard fought and-one in the middle of both teams, Matthews gave the Rams a 52-50 lead. Following that, it was his floater and his two 3-point shots that gave Rhody a 64-57 lead that they would never relinquish in the second half. Together, Matthews (4-6 3-pt) and Dowtin (3-4 3-pt) lead URI to 47.1% shooting from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, the team from Kingston held the Davidson Wildcats to just 4 of 24 (16.7%) 3-point shooting. For a team with the top scoring duo in the Atlantic 10 and one of the best in the country, Jack Gibbs and Peyton Aldridge were rendered useless.
Another key component of the victory was that with Davidson out to a 7-point lead in the middle of the second half and in full control, the Rhode Island Rams turned up their intensity on defense. The Rams stopped allowing silly slip screens and crazy passes from Jack Gibbs to account for all of Davidson's points. In the final 11:13 of the game, URI ended the victory on a 24-6 run and the Wildcats could not put anything into the basket.
Moving forward to their final 8 conference games, their free throw shooting and slow starts in each half will not be excusable. Going 16 of 30 from the free throw line will not be good enough for against better opposition. In addition, a better team (like La Salle) will run away with the leads that Davidson that had at the beginning of both the first and second half on their home court. However, URI (15-7 overall and 7-3 in conference) can take many positives as well, including the emergence of Jeff "Jefe" Dowtin and his counterpart, E.C. Matthews (which will be highlighted in my first feature on Matthews).
I assume after this game was over, the Davidson mascot was not trying to dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" anymore.
