The University of Rhode Island men’s basketball team swept its two games this week with an 80-61 win over the University at Albany on Friday and an 86-77 victory against Yale University on Tuesday.
The matchup against the Great Danes was the second of a two-game homestand for the Rams, with the first resulting in an 80-57 victory over Stonehill College on Nov. 11.
UAlbany took an early 14-5 lead to start the game that forced URI Head Coach Archie Miller to call a timeout. Miller’s adjustments seemed to work, as the Rams ended the first half on a 33-16 run and went into halftime with a 38-30 lead. Rhody third-year Jahmere Tripp and seventh-year guard Tyler Cochran combined to go a perfect 11-11 from the free-throw line. Cochran led the Rams with 15 points on 4-9 shooting and 2-4 from three in the first half.
“I thought we had a group [in the last] eight minutes, maybe [the] last 10 minutes of the first half, that had way more energy,” Miller said. “That sort of turned the tides for us.”
The Rams extended their lead to a then-game-high 13 points after scoring five points less than a minute into the half. The Great Danes didn’t let the double-digit deficit affect them, as they were able to cut the lead to just five points off the back of a 16-8 run. UAlbany second-year guard Amir Lindsey put up 12 points during the run and finished with a total of 19 points as UAlbany’s leading scorer.
The Rams would, once again, go on a run of their own following a UAlbany run. The Rams outscored the Great Danes 17-7 over the next four minutes to bring the lead back up to double digits. UAlbany only mustered up eight more points over the final six minutes of the game.
For the Rams, sixth-year guard Myles Corey scored 10 straight points over a four-minute period, including converting both and-one opportunities. Corey’s 19 total points made him the leading scorer for the Rams, with Cochran right behind him at 18.
“I kind of just got going, but getting downhill is one of my specialties,” Corey said. “I’m a bigger guard, so taking bumps and laying it in is what I do.”
The Rams traveled to New Haven, Connecticut, on Tuesday to take on Yale for their first true road game of the season.
Unlike Friday’s game, neither team dominated on the scoring front for a good portion of the first half. It took nine minutes before a two-possession lead was held by either team. URI would be the team to claim that title as a part of an 11-2 run that gave it a 25-18 lead midway through the half.
Immediately after Rhody took that lead, Yale would go on a 10-1 run over the next three minutes to take a 28-26 lead that it wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the first half. The Bulldogs headed into halftime up six points with a lead of 46-40.
The Rams, despite the roster turnover, started showing signs of last year’s team, which made 10 second-half comebacks, when they regained the lead with 13 minutes left due to a 17-6 run. From that 13-minute mark until the four-minute mark, both teams continued to trade buckets, as there were four lead changes and two ties throughout that period.
With 4:14 left in the game, Cochran hit a corner three to extend URI’s lead to five. From there, URI would go on a scoring run that the Bulldogs wouldn’t be able to match. Rhody outscored Yale 9-4 to take a 10-point lead with just under 1:30 left in the game. The run was capped off by Cochran converting a three-point play as he made the layup while drawing the foul to send him to the free-throw line for one shot, which he hit.
Before this victory, the Rams had lost nine straight games on the road or at a neutral site, with the last win coming on Jan. 11 in a 67-64 overtime win against the University of Richmond.
The Rams will continue their road trip as they head to Orlando, Florida, for the Terry’s Chocolate ESPN Events Invitational. The first matchup is against Towson University on Monday at 11 a.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2 with a radio broadcast available on The Varsity Network.
