SOUTH KINGSTON, R.I. – At some point, a lot of close wins add up to a storybook season. It’s rare that a team manages to win most, if not all, of the close games they have, and it shows that there’s not always a huge difference between winning and losing. To win a high percentage of such games is remarkable, because it’s very hard to do. So when a team does win most of those games, something special may be happening.
Enter the 2009-10 Rhode Island Rams.
There is still plenty of basketball to be played. In fact, right in front of the Rams is a key stretch of days where they will be in Ohio for games at Xavier and Dayton, the only games they will play against the two teams picked atop the Atlantic 10 to start the season. But right now the Rams look more and more like a team having as good a year as anyone could have imagined, especially after yet another close win on Wednesday night.
After scoring the last nine points against Duquesne for a 75-67 win, the Rams are now 15-2 overall and 3-1 in the Atlantic 10. The margin of victory is deceiving; the game went back and forth in the second half, with nine ties and six lead changes in the latter frame. Duquesne took the lead with 1:38 left before the Rams closed it out with the aforementioned run.
In keeping with a season-long pattern, the Rams out-scored the Dukes 14-5 in the last five minutes of the game. For the season, the Rams are out-scoring opponents by more than one point per game in the final five minutes and shooting significantly better than their opponent both from the field and at the line. And in part because of this, the Rams are 8-2 in games decided by single digits.
With that success comes a certain confidence for this team, one that had a question about what kind of player leadership they would have entering the season.
“Going down the stretch, it’s our game,” said senior guard Keith Cothran. “We feel confident enough that we can win whatever game we’re into, whether it’s a three-point game, five-point game or ten-point game.”
The Rams have especially done a lot of this in the last month. They have won games in the final minutes against the likes of Providence, Northeastern, Fairfield, Drexel, Oklahoma State and Akron prior to the win over the Dukes. They’ve won by getting clutch baskets and key stops, as well as sealing games with free throws.
On a couple of occasions, they have done this in dramatic fashion, like scoring six points in the final 39 seconds to turn a five-point deficit into a one-point win. On Wednesday night, the final nine points included none from Cothran, the team’s unquestioned go-to guy, and began with a three-pointer by freshman Akeem Richmond.
“They continue to find a way,” head coach Jim Baron said of his team. “They just have a lot of tenacity and they keep coming at you.”
That will certainly be important in the next week. The Rams won’t play the Musketeers or Flyers at home this season, so this is their only shot at each team. Pulling out at least one win will do wonders for their NCAA Tournament profile, and if they get into a close game, their play thus far suggests they have a pretty good chance to pull it out.
