SMITHFIELD, R.I. – If you like offense, Bryant is a team you would like to see this season. That’s not something many would have figured prior to the season given their struggles in Division I, but an unexpected cast has become a team that can score with a lot of teams. Shootouts have been the norm with this team, and on Thursday night they won another one against St. Francis Brooklyn on account of their offense, this time by an 84-77 margin.
Scoring is the key to how this team wins games. After Thursday night, the Bulldogs are 13-2 when they score at least 70 points, which puts them at 3-4 when scoring less than 70 points. In past years, they weren’t built to win games like this, but a lot has changed and that includes the results.
“I would say this is a good basketball team, a high basketball I.Q. team, and they know how to win,” said head coach Tim O’Shea.
The first half of Thursday night’s game was not a thing of beauty at the defensive end for either team. Through the first 12 minutes, both teams were shooting at least 50 percent from the field, with St. Francis also going 7-11 from long range. Even when the scoring pace slowed in the final minutes of the half, it wasn’t because the teams discovered defense; rather, it was from bad shots and turnovers, with the latter happening more with St. Francis as the Terriers turned the ball over nine times in the half.
In the second half, the defensive woes continued for Bryant, allowing St. Francis to stay in the game. Offensive rebounds were a big contributor, as the Terriers got enough to build a 33-22 rebounding edge at one point. Then, with the game tied at 68, Bryant got some stops and finally started finishing some defensive possessions with rebounds, and a couple of offensive rebounds of their own didn’t hurt as they cut the final rebounding margin down to 37-32. They played enough defense to hold the Terriers to 45.2 percent from the field for the game, and while St. Francis Brooklyn was 13-31 from long range, they were just 5-15 in the second half.
“That’s a hard game to win, when a team comes in and makes 13 threes,” said O’Shea.
O’Shea knows his team isn’t very athletic and won’t stop a lot of teams from scoring. Opponents are averaging over 70 points per game against them and shooting 45 percent from the field, numbers that aren’t better in conference play as they give up over 72 points per game.
Winning with offense can be a dicey proposition, but the Bulldogs have done that and continue to run with it. They are shooting over 50 percent in Northeast Conference play, including over 40 percent from long range, and on the season they have a 1.2 assist-to-turnover ratio that included 19 assists and nine turnovers on Thursday.
What’s more remarkable about the offense is that this isn’t a team that’s been playing together for 2-3 years prior to this run. The chemistry has come together quickly, as key players for this team include Columbia transfer Dyami Starks, who scored all of his game-high 25 points on 9-10 shooting in the second half on Thursday night after going 0-5 in the first half, Ohio transfer Frankie Dobbs and Joe O’Shea, who transferred from Holy Cross. Starks and O’Shea were first eligible this season. Dobbs had 13 assists to go with 12 points on Thursday, orchestrating the offense in a quietly effective fashion.
“13 assists is hard to get on a Division I basketball level,” said Starks.
The personnel makeup is hardly a blueprint for big success at first glance, but it is working with this team, even it has been winning by out-scoring the opposition more than from stopping or slow them down.
“None of our guys were considered elite players, but they’ve come together, and you’ve got a team that has the highest RPI in the state, is 16-6 and has the third-most road wins in the country,” said O’Shea.
O’Shea knows what he has with this team. Defensive stoppers, they aren’t. An offensive powerhouse, they are, and with it has come the best season in the program’s young Division I history.
