Sunday, February 18, 2024 11:00 a.m.
Ryan Center, Kingston, R.I.

Loyola makes the trip to the Ocean State Sunday for their first ever game at Rhode Island. Last year at Gentile Arena, the Ramblers came up short, 79-77, in a game that eventually decided which of the two teams finished in last place in the A10. This year, the Ramblers enter the weekend tied for first, and are seeking their sixth conference road win and sixth win in a row against the much-improved Rams of Rhode Island.

In year two at Rhody, Coach Archie Miller made a wholesale roster purge. This year’s team returns only 15.9% of minutes played and 12.9% of scoring from last year’s squad, mostly in the person of two of Miller’s freshman recruits from last year. Everybody else? Graduated or gone. Only 14 teams in college hoops brought back less playing time from last season. The new crew includes four experienced players from the portal, a juco, and four or five promising freshmen.

URI has been one of the streakiest and hard-to-figure teams in the league this season, and not only because of the roster turnover. They won five of their first seven games (including giving Northwestern a pretty good challenge), but then lost five in a row. They got a shot in the arm when multiple transfer David Green’s waiver denial was overturned in the big court decision against the NCAA’s transfer rules. With Green added to the rotation they won four in a row, including the first three in conference play. They followed the 3-0 conference start with a 0-4 streak. Last time out they came within two points of upsetting UMass in Amherst. They come into Sunday’s game at 11-13 overall, 5-6 in the league.

Coach Miller is likely to start 6’3” junior Luis Kortright, 6’5” sophomore Brandon Weston, 6’9” freshman forward David Fuchs, 6’4” junior guard Jaden House, and 6’7” junior forward David Green. However, Green left the last game early in the 2nd half with a knee tweak and has not appeared in practice this week—it will come down to a game time decision.

House, a transfer from High Point, is the team’s leading scorer at 15.3 per game. He finishes great at the basket, moves really well through traffic, and hits at 36.8% from distance. Green averages 15.2 ppg, and has had four 20-point or higher games in the 11 he’s played since becoming available. He can explode from the three-point line (he was 6 of 8 behind the arc at George Mason, and 4 of 7 on threes in a win over UMass), and is currently shooting 57.1% from distance.

The rest of the starters include Quinnipiac transfer Luis Kortright, who averages 10.5 points, 3.6 rebounds, and a team-leading 3.5 assists per game. Weston was a top 100 recruit in 2021, spent a redshirt year at Seton Hall, and transferred to Rhody last season; he averages 5.2 points and recently joined the starting lineup. David Fuchs is a freshman forward from London who is leads the team in rebounding at 6.8 per game and averages 7.2 points.

The bench is led by Bradley transfer Zek Montgomery, a 6’6” junior forward who averages 10.1 points and 4.2 rebounds (he scored 12 points in 11 minutes off the bench as a freshman to beat Loyola our last time at Carver Arena). Cam Estevez is a 6’3” freshman guard from NYC who averages 7.7 points, Jeremy Foumena is a 6’11” freshman center (5.7 points, 3.9 rebounds), and Tyson Brown is a 6’9” juco forward averaging 4.1 per game.

The several times I’ve watched Rhode Island play this year, I’ve thought: “They’re a fun team to watch!” They use a lot of movement on offense, they really like to shoot the ball, and they play at a quick pace with a great flow. And they are very good shooters (But that attractive-to-the-eye style of play disguises some big negatives: they don’t play much defense (they’re among the worst in the country at forcing opponent’s turnovers), they are among the worst free-throw shooting teams in the country (only 64%), and although they shoot a nice percentage as a team (36.4%) they don’t take very many three-pointers.

In conference play, URI has the fifth-best offensive efficiency but the 13th defensive efficiency. Don’t get into a shoot-out with them. Manage the game, put them on the line if you have to. Play good, strong defense. Don’t leave them wide open on threes, especially Green.


Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... Island.pdf

Rhode Island game notes: https://gorhody.com/documents/2024/2/17 ... hicago.pdf

TV/Streaming video: CBS Sports Network https://www.cbssports.com/cbssports

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=176&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=488364

Vegas odds: Loyola by 4

nice preview...sounds like every game since Goshen. ...we will have to play well...and just for a period on the sentence Zac Montgomery scored zero points when we smacked Bradley in March Madness. It still bothers me that league winners dont go to the dance. There is no doubt that winning the league is a more impressive accomplishment than a couple of games at a tournament.

A-10 Member: Rhode Island




University of Rhode Island (URI)
Founded as the state public land grant research university in 1892
Main Campus - Kingston, RI (1,254 acres)
Full-time Enrollment - Undergraduate: 14,654 Graduate: 3,407


URI is located in the colonial era village of Kingston in the town of South Kingstown. It has a rural campus with the small village centered at its main entrance. The town of South Kingstown is a south facing coastal community with a permanent full time year round resident population of 32,000. It however has far more residents (over 10k+) when part time inhabitants such as fall/winter college students and summer beach home inhabitants are factored in. The URI campus is in the least populated northern part of South Kingstown some ten miles from its more populated and built up coast. It is located on Route 138 some ten miles off an Interstate Route 95 exit. URI is some 15 miles from Newport and 30 miles from Providence.

URI Athletics
Nickname: Rams
Colors; Keaney Blue, Navy Blue, and White
Varsity Sports - Men: 7 (including FCS football) Women: 9

Men's Basketball
First Season: 1904
NCAA Tournament Appearances: 10 Record: 8-10 Highlights: 1988 Sweet-16 & 1998 Elite-8
NIT Appearances: 15 Record: 14-16 Highlights: 1946 Finals & 2010 Final-4
Current Head Coach: Archie Miller
Home: Ryan Center on Kingston Campus - opened in 2002 - capacity 7,657


URI started men's basketball play in 1904. Rhode Island has the second most wins of all New England D1 schools behind only five time NCAA Champion UConn. Its most successful era was under the tutelage of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Frank Keaney who went 401-124 from 1920 to 1948. Keaney is credited by many as the innovator of the modern fast break as he sped up what had been a slow low scoring game. Several coaches have have led the team to the postseason and recorded wins. The Rams have registered notable postseason victories over programs such as Missouri, Syracuse, Purdue, Kansas, Creighton, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Seton Hall, Northwestern, Nevada, and Virginia Tech. Several players have made the NBA over the years with recent long term NBA stars that included Lamar Odom and Cuttino Mobley.

Phil shot 9/10 from the free throw line. He deserves a ton of credit for that improvement. Dealing with the troika of Alston/Adelekun/Welch is too much for a lot of teams.

Good mix by Drew of players today as 11 played. Keeping the boys fresh.

Rubin only 5 minutes of play as probably Drew needed the big bodies in the paint.

Good guys, 34 bench points to only 14 for URI.
Welch taking a feed from Norris for the dunk, that was fun.
Yes, we have a strong bench.

DAME TIME and Phil over 20 pts each.
Both really showing their stuff today.

We had a bad 3 ball (25%) as a team today but we hit enough of them I guess.

We were pretty sloppy with high (21) fouls. But URI is weak at the line so we got away with it and I guess probably we absorbed that into the game plan, if it needed to be.

TOs a bit high at 12 but we survived.

The important thing is that we are again in 1st place!!!!

Drew has really learned to use the bench well this year. We always seem to foul a lot, but rarely have a guy foul out.

I made the short trip down to the game today. There appeared to be a few Rambler fans in attendance. (Kingston, RI is not a popular destination. It is very rural. In fact, I once hit a deer when I was driving on campus. The deer survived.)

One of the regulars told me it was the largest crowd of the season. The Ramblers are a draw!

As noted, Rubin didn't play very much, probably because of matchups. However, early in the game he twice left his man to go for a block, giving his man made an easy basket.

This would have been a blowout if we hit a few more threes. There is an electronic banner around the entire balcony. It may affect three-point shooting.

A fun afternoon.

I don’t have the stats to look it up, but have had a running theory this season that Phil is much more effective in the second halves when the other team has lost their legs and his bully ball works more. Not sure if it’s true but the eye test seems to be true again today

Just win. Some games we torch from outside, some games we pound inside. But we keep winning and have been so good in the last 8 minutes of games

nice !
We just seem to find a way.
4 games up on the 5th place team with 5 games to go
We seemed to be in better shape
better bench
There have been a couple games this year when I thought the opposing team looked like they had better players but our players played better.Today was one of them.
Overall I think next year might be a really good year for the A-10 and we will have a lot of top guys to replace.
I am wondering if Alston will bolt for Europe?
I am worried about replacing Norris now I am getting worried about the post. Miles at this point is a different player than Dame and Phil.
Thought the announcers were super complimentary of us and the A-10. The CBS telecasts are sooo much better than the ESPN+
5 days off...so much better than the Valley.

The announced crowd of 5,407 at the Ryan Center today for the Loyola game was the third largest of the season for Rhode Island. Weekend games are typically better attended than weeknights. While URI once again has the fifth best average attendance in the A-10, the 2023-24 season to date average of 4,283 is on track to be the second lowest on record in the 20+ year history of the Ryan Center. Interest in the program is down as this season is shaping up to the fourth straight losing campaign for the team. The last time that URI had such an era of futility was back in the early 1980's.