The University of Rhode Island men’s basketball team moved to 6-0 for the first time in 44 years by defeating the University of Detroit Mercy 81-75 in the Jacksonville Classic on Wednesday.
Coming off their 91-53 thrashing over the College of Charleston on Sunday, the Rams traveled down to Florida for their first games away from the Ryan Center of the season. In its closest battle of the season, Rhode Island was able to hold off a second-half surge by Detroit Mercy to stay unbeaten.
“You want to feel adversity, you want to feel pressure,” URI Head Coach Archie Miller said. “[When] you’re playing against teams you don’t know much about, you [have] to operate on the fly and we were able to win this game on the fly, which is a good sign.”
The Rams came out of the gates hot from the field. They knocked down six of their first nine field goals, including three shots beyond the arc, to take an early nine-point lead in the opening six minutes. On the other side, the Titans started 3-18 from the field and didn’t make a three until the final two minutes of the opening half.
Second-year guard Cam Estevez provided a spark off the bench for Rhode Island by shooting a perfect 4-4 from three-point range for 12 first-half points. Led by the sharpshooting of Estevez, the Rams made nine three-pointers in the opening 20 minutes, which was their highest mark in any half this season.
“That’s the first time all season that we’ve seen extended amounts of zone [defense],” Miller said. “Our guys did a really good job of penetrating it, getting it where we wanted and we stepped up and made shots.”
Rhode Island held a 46-34 lead heading into the locker room, making it the third-straight game where it held a double-digit lead at the half. The game didn’t get within nine points in the final eight minutes of the half, but the Titans were able to stay within striking distance with the help of 14 first-half points by third-year guard Orlando Lovejoy.
“As they hung with it, our defense really bent and caved at times,” Miller said. “I thought Lovejoy really hurt us in the ball-screen actions.”
Detroit Mercy stayed relentless in the second half and started to cause serious issues for URI on the offensive end. After committing just three first-half turnovers, the Rams turned the ball over nine times in the closing 20 minutes.
With nine minutes left, the Titans converted a turnover into a dunk by sixth-year forward Emmanuel Kuac to cap off a 20-7 run and tie the game at 60. Fifth-year forward David Green, who had a team-high 20 points, provided the response that the Rams needed with five points in the span of two possessions to regain a lead they would never relinquish.
Free throw struggles plagued Rhode Island throughout the afternoon, as it missed six of its first 11 shots from the charity stripe. However, after the Titans cut the lead back down to three with 40 seconds left, fourth-year guard Sebastian Thomas and third-year guard Jamarques Lawrence knocked down six straight free throws when the Rams needed them most to salt the game away.
“[Detroit Mercy] made things hard, it was a tough-minded game,” Miller said. “At the end of the day, we had a couple of guys step up in big moments and make plays.”
As he has been all season, Thomas was the facilitator on offense for URI in this game by racking up nine assists, coming up just one assist short of his second consecutive double-double. Thomas came into the game fourth in the nation in assists per game and has now had seven or more assists in all five games that he has played this season.
With the win, Rhode Island is off to a 6-0 start for the 13th time in program history and the first time since the 1980-81 season, when it started 7-0.
The Rams will look to stay undefeated when they wrap up their two-game slate at the Jacksonville Classic with a matchup against the University of Texas at Arlington at 2 p.m. on Thursday. The game can be streamed on BallerTV.com, with a radio broadcast available on The Varsity Network.