By AMAN KIDWAI
WASHINGTON D.C. — After two losses to end the regular season, No. 25 Rhode Island, the top seed in this week’s Atlantic 10 Tournament, faced a difficult challenge in its quarterfinal matchup with 8-seeded Virginia Commonwealth. URI took on a talented, energetic VCU team and, in a game that was tied with under seven minutes left, emerged victorious in the day’s opener at Capital One Arena, 76-67.
Rhode Island moves on to play No. 4 seed St. Joseph’s. The semifinal matchup will take place at 1 p.m. on Friday.
“I just think it was exactly the type of game that we needed,” head coach Dan Hurley said after the hard-fought contest. “We needed it to be tight and we needed to get back to that free-throw line today and show some guts and some nerves and close it out.”
In their season-ending loss to Davidson, the Rams missed multiple front ends of 1-and-1 free throws as they blew a six-point lead in the final minute. This afternoon, they started 3-of-11 from the charity stripe but calmed down in the game’s waning minutes to finish 11-of-19 and secure the win. It also helped that they made half of their three-point attempts, going 11-of-22 behind the arc.
Guards owned the day for the victors, as sophomore Justin Dowtin (18 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists) and senior Jared Terrell (16 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists) led the way and another senior guard, E.C. Matthews, dropped 11 as did freshman Fatts Russell.
Justin Tillman (23 points, 15 rebounds) and De’Riante Jenkins (16 points) combined with a heavily pro-VCU crowd to make this a worthwhile test for the conference favorite. Tillman got his fourth foul with 10:23 left in the game, right before VCU tied it up at 55, otherwise, he would have put up even bigger numbers and this probably would have been a closer game down the stretch.
Instead, Terrell responded with a three for URI and his team started to pull away. VCU briefly reclaimed the lead with 6:38 left but then Dowtin scored five straight points and assisted a Stanford Robinson (7 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists) three-pointer to give the Rams an 8-0 run that put the game away.
“Confidence, patience,” Dowtin said about the Rams’ approach to handling VCU’s constant runs at the lead. “My teammates were able to hit open shots […] We were just making plays. We did what we didn’t do last game, and that was close it out.”
VCU has long been known for challenging opponents with an aggressive man-press defense, but at various points in the game head coach Mike Rhoades ran a zone. It certainly threw Hurley and his players off, but Rhode Island persevered in this rematch of last year’s A-10 Tournament championship.
“I’ve probably watched 15 VCU games this year,” Hurley said. “I haven’t seen them play zone like one possession… we handled it obviously a lot better in the second half… the players made tremendous adjustments.”
“We just wanted to attack it [in] the first half,” Terrell said. “[In the] second half we set screens, got them to the paint where we shared the ball, and that’s where we were able to make shots.”
After passing this test, URI is two wins away from repeating as A-10 Tournament champions. But the path is certainly more challenging this year. They need to be ready for their matchup with a St. Joe’s team that beat up George Mason in its quarterfinal contest and a possible finals meeting with either St. Bonaventure or Davidson looming.
“You’re not really expecting to see VCU in a quarterfinal game in the A-10 Tournament,” Hurley said, later adding that it should help his team down the road. “We haven’t had that much adversity this year,” he said. “Losing two in a row and having to respond against VCU in D.C. with a ton of pressure on you to bounce back and show who you are, I just think it was exactly the type of game that we needed.”
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