SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Exactly when this was going to happen was an unknown. But there wasn’t really any question it was going to happen. Bryant’s turn for the better in the win-loss column has come in the new year, as the Bulldogs’ often bumpy transition into Division I is getting smoother in 2011. It continued with another win on Thursday night, a 74-71 decision over Fairleigh Dickinson thanks to a clutch three-pointer in the final seconds.
Late last month, it seemed like wins were not far away for this team, even though they were hard to come by. They were clearly improving, especially at the offensive end and with their backcourt. The offensive improvement is important because there have been plenty of occasions during the first two seasons where the defense was fine, but the Bulldogs’ struggles to score kept them from winning games. But now, the Bulldogs have shot 50 percent or better from the floor in three of the last four games.
“We’ve definitely done a better job of sharing the ball and getting each other open shots,” said guard Frankie Dobbs, who hit the winning shot with two seconds left on Thursday night. “We definitely have all benefited from it.”
Dobbs has been a big part of the offensive surge as the team’s point guard. Originally recruited be O’Shea at Ohio, he followed O’Shea to an area that is familiar to him, as his father, Frank “Happy” Dobbs was the head coach at Brown from 1991 to 1999. Dobbs has represented a big upgrade at the point, as Chris Burrell ably ran the team the past two seasons but didn’t have the talent or physical gifts Dobbs has.
“Frankie’s on a whole different level,” said senior Cecil Gresham.
That was in evidence on Thursday night, and it wasn’t just his game-winner with two seconds left. Dobbs had a game-high 25 points on 7-10 shooting, including 7-9 on three-pointers. He made them when they counted most, breaking a 56-56 tie with consecutive trifectas to key an 8-0 run. That came before the big shot from the left wing in the final seconds.
It also showed something O’Shea was quick to mention: he’s a winner. Besides being the son of a coach, he played at powerhouse St. Edward High School in Ohio with Michigan State’s Delvon Roe. Add in his ability to make free throws late and the clutch shots he has made this season, and it’s clear his numbers, impressive though they are, don’t tell the whole story.
“You can’t coach that, you can only recruit that,” said O’Shea.
For Gresham, a night like Thursday night seemed so far away a year ago, when an ACL injury shelved him for the season in the early going. His return has certainly helped this team given his experience, and although he struggled early on this season he has returned to look more like the player he was two seasons ago. Besides being injured, seeing the team struggle last year was not easy for him to deal with.
“It’s great to be back on the court after sitting out all last year and seeing the guys lose, lose and lose, and just felt bad not being able to do anything about it,” Gresham said. “This year, the knee feels great and we’re on a tear right now.”
The Bulldogs aren’t playing very differently from earlier in the season, but now they are getting wins to show for their efforts. Part of the difficulty of getting wins earlier in the season is the schedule. Other coaches without a lot of wins by the time January rolls around have pointed to the schedule, and certainly a team’s record is to a degree a function of who they play.
“It’s not like we went out and had a soft non-conference schedule – I think it’s in the top 70 – and a lot of those games were on the road, so it’s not a shock that we struggled like that,” head coach Tim O’Shea said.
Now, the Bulldogs have won four in a row, their first such streak as a Division I team. They are 4-3 in Northeast Conference play, the first time they have been above .500 in conference play. And as they are clearly turning a corner, there’s a different feeling right now. Helping out is that on Thursday, O’Shea felt they didn’t play as well as they had been but were still able to come away with the win, which he called “a big deal for us.”
O’Shea has been allowed to take a long view from the moment he took the job, knowing the transition to Division I is never easy, and he clearly got the players to understand it. It would be easy to lose a team with wins being so hard to come by, but O’Shea never really worried about that given the character of the players. They understood the difficulty of the transition and the schedule they were playing.
With a four-game winning streak and a winning record in conference play, attendance should be better in a week when students get back on campus. Some may come for Saturday’s game against Monmouth to get a head start, but next weekend will be a better barometer.
“Last year, we got good turnouts but we would lose the game and fans would leave,” said Gresham. “Hopefully this year we’ll get those fans back.”
Considering the improvement currently taking place, that would seem a reasonable possibility.
