PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Although his team didn’t exactly cruise to victory the way the final score might imply, Rhode Island head coach Jim Baron was quite happy with his team’s first effort.
“There’s no question, it was a great first start for us,” Baron said after the Rams’ 78-57 win over in-state rival Brown. “I was really worried about this game – I watched the tape, they beat St. Francis, and I thought they gave Virginia Tech all they could handle down in Blacksburg.”
Early on, his fears seemed justified. The game went back and forth with several lead changes in the first half, but the Bears had a 26-14 edge on the glass at the break that kept them in the game. Not only that, but the Rams’ halfcourt offense looked sluggish, and if not for some easy baskets off turnovers, they surely would not have had the 31-30 edge they had on the scoreboard. The Rams scored 19 of those 31 points off Brown’s 11 turnovers.
Baron said they have to keep working on the halfcourt offense, and with no clear sniper from long range, they’ll have to execute well. That weakness was also apparent just from a look at the box score, as the Rams were 3-23 from downtown. But some quality play off the bench, namely from Jamal Wilson (14 points), Orion Outerbridge (10 points on 4-4 shooting, including the highlight of the night when he followed up a Wilson miss with a dunk off the rebound) and Stevie Mejia (seven points, three assists with no turnovers), along with the press, kept them in front before they started to look better.
“I don’t think we weren’t trying hard. We had a slow start,” said Outerbridge, who looks ready to make the move from “potential” player to key contributor. “We needed a wake-up call, and they gave us a wake-up call with us only being up by one at the half. In the second half, we picked it up, I think our athleticism took over after a while and they started to get tired.”
Besides that, the press was better in the second half as well. The Bears had to take all their timeouts early as they struggled to get the ball inbounds at one stretch. While the press had some results in the first half, it was even better as the Rams’ athletic advantage showed up.
“First half, we kind of gave up a lot, we were a bit slow on certain assignments,” said Wilson. “In the second half, we got it together. We just looked at each other and said ‘this is what we need to do’.”
Added Mejia: “In the first half, we had to get the feel of the game, it’s our first game. In the second half, we just put a lot of pressure on them.”
The Rams’ bench accounted for 35 points on 16-27 shooting. The offense seemed to run better when Mejia was in the game than it did while starter Marquis Jones was in there. Outerbridge can be a game-changer with his length and athleticism, while Wilson can play bigger and freshman Akeem Richmond has some scoring ability as well. The way they play, depth is needed, so that along with the struggles of a couple of starters means this game can’t be an isolated case.
“We got great minutes off the bench from so many different guys – Jamal (Wilson), Orion, Stevie, and that’s the way this team is going to be,” Baron said. “We need to get quality minutes off the bench.”
The Rams were the final Division I team to start their season, and at times they clearly looked like it. But once they got going, the Bears had a tough time stopping them and the press was even better. The Rams also rebounded like Baron’s teams there have tended to. While they didn’t cruise to victory, they’re happy, and optimistic the sluggish start will be an anomaly.
