Rhode Island Rams (5-4) vs Charlotte 49ers (3-6), Game 8, Diamond Head Classic
Sunday, December 24, 2018, 12:30AM EST (Stan Sheriff Center, University of Hawaii)
TV: ESPNU
Rhody favored by 12 1/2. One common opponent - College of Charleston. CofC beat both in Charleston: URI 66-55 on 11/13; Niners 72-64 on 12/1. Rams also 1-0 vs Big XII - defeated West Virginia 83-70 on 12/16.
FYI - Hawaii defeated Colorado 70-62 in OT in the losers bracket.
From 5-25 after the first 8 minutes of the game to 28-37 at the half. Winnable game. Have to rebound and limit them to one shot. Have to attack on offense. Younger needs more plays to get his 3 shot.
Seems like this team gets way more blocks than teams of the previous years. We get blocked a lot too.
we have colorado next? any chance in this game? we are essentially playing three freshmen and two walk ons and mcgill a lot of minutes. it’s really hard to win with that sort of lineup. i’m not sure what to expect next season win/loss wise but i expect really good defense and to limit the turnovers. this team does have a lot of fight and that is something that will serve us well when we are more talented.
quotes from the uri board:
Pretty frustrating to see that Malik Martin is light years ahead of any of our freshman at this point
Malik is a Player with a capital P
clt hopes the team is enjoying the trip
McGill has improved more since the start of the season than all of last year. He just needs to be more aggressive.
i agree. he has played a lot better this season and has done what he can with the pt he has been given. i appreciate how hard he is playing but he is a big south/socon talent and moving forward, he should be playing very little unless he is hot.
The turnovers are obviously out of control and Supica needs to be a bit more crafty to avoid some of those blocks. That said, really like the futures of Younger and Martin. Pretty disappointed in Mangum so far. I’m not writing him off by any means but it seems he’s still figuring things out on the court.
There’s still time to turn it around for Mangum but if we go 2/3 on incoming freshman moving forward we will be in good shape. We need to get past the attrition hump where we aren’t relying on freshman to be impact players day one.
i agree that mangum has hit a rough patch but it seems with the freshmen, they do not all play well at once. mangum has had some pretty good games but not at the same time as the other guys but he does seem to be hitting a wall.
next season we will be reliant on four(unless someone transfers) sophomores, a couple juniors and a bunch of new guys. def. better than one senior, a sophomore and four freshmen like we have this season. also, cannot discount the amount of comfort the returning guys will have with sanchez’s system after being it in for a season.
During the summer, when coaches can only work with players individually (I believe that is the rule), our current players will be able to teach/coach the incoming players because they have learned the system. This will give next year’s class a head start that this year’s class did not have.
agree. also, and it seems on paper like our incoming guys are much better shooters than our current crop of freshmen. we know vasic can shoot and bertram is supposed to be a big time three point shooter. brice and caleb seem to be pretty good from outside so this can massively change the dynamic of our offense.
And don’t forget Shepherd. He may be the best of all.
I’m really excited for what Shepard will bring next year. Think having him with the new guys and sophomores will add some much needed experience in bigger games.
Honestly…next year we should be nasty. Shooting, athleticism, depth…it will take time to gel and the record may not be indicative of how good the team ends up…but it should be easily the most talented and deepest team we’ve had in a decade.
I don’t expect shepherd to be better than JD, and quite honestly, I want Young to push him for PT and the starter role. I want competition at all 5 spots and ultimately about 10 deep in quality.
More excited about having so much length on the wings. I think we’ll still be limited in the post, but at least the rest of the team should be able to play aggressively without worrying too much about depth.
We have to start running a more full featured offense though. JD carries so much of the scoring load right now that next year is going to be a supreme challenge. I feel like Martin looks the most ready to increase his share, not sure who after that. Maybe Younger.
Our offense is the same offense we’ll continue to run with or without Davis. You can’t see it from the team we have on the floor, but this offense provides plenty of opportunities for players to read and react and either shoot, create, or pass every time they touch the ball. We just don’t have anyone good enough to do take advantage and make it look good the way UVA does.
