CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – For Rhode Island, it’s all about setting the pace of the game. No matter how much the halfcourt offense improves – and it has – or how good they might become in the halfcourt defense – which has also improved – the Rams are a team that wants to play the game fast. Although that’s been evident in every game thus far, it was perhaps never more obvious than in Sunday’s 80-69 win at Boston College.
“We wanted to get them out in the open court, so we put some pressure on them to make them run and go up and down with us,” said senior guard Keith Cothran. “We wore them down and were able to come up with the win.”
The Rams set the tone in this game very early with the press and turned it into a track meet. There were some stretches where the Eagles were able to slow the game down, but they were few and far between. And when the Eagles tried to run with the Rams for a bit in the second half, they didn’t have the horses to survive. Selectively running might have worked, but that’s not what they tried.
The Rams are an athletic bunch with some length, and that lends itself to this style. At times, they had a lineup on the floor with Cothran, Lamonte Ulmer, Delroy James and Orion Outerbridge. You’re not going to find a more athletic unit than that in college basketball – perhaps one as athletic, but not more – and there’s a good deal of length in that group as well. Put them in a press, and it’s that much harder to move the ball around.
“We wanted to force the tempo, we wanted to force the issue,” head coach Jim Baron said. “We knew that their flex is very, very solid and very, very good, but once we got the ball in the open court, it seems like our guys took advantage of that. Our guys are very explosive.”
The Rams are 8-1 now, and much of that success is due to setting the tone in games. Against Brown, the press was the reason they won as they looked very shaky when the game slowed down, especially defensively as Brown has proven they can run their offense well against even good defensive teams. Against Northeastern, another team that likes to play a slower game, they did just that. A few nights later, they did it against Boston College on the road.
The success they have had with it has given them immense confidence. That often happens for teams that play this way, as one turnover that becomes a basket can easily lead to others following it. Easy baskets do wonders for a team. If you doubt that, just ask a team that struggles to get easy baskets how much of a difference that would make.
“We work on it in practice, and our guys play with a lot of confidence,” said Baron. “You’ve got to play that way. We play to score, we play to run, we play to win.”
The effect on the halfcourt offense is noticeable. As the Rams get their share of easy baskets, the halfcourt offense gets better. Part of that is some natural maturation as the team plays more games and the players all get comfortable with each other, but there can’t be any doubt that getting some easy baskets changes things. With the confidence they get from easy baskets and setting the tone, it’s a natural end product.
Even so, there’s still no doubt about how this team wants to play.
“When we’re making shots and we’re making the right plays, we look good in the halfcourt,” said Cothran, who is 24-34 from the field in the last three games. “But we like to get in the open court, and that’s what set the tone.”
It set the tone they wanted to, and once they did that, they were well on their way once again.
