2011 Rhode Island Rams Basketball: Rhode Island vs Fordham

After a poor offensive first half Rhode Island got hot, outscoring Fordham 47-24 in the second half to win going away by the final score of 72-52. Nikola Malesevic led the Rams (14-8, 5-3) with a game-high 20 points while Delroy James (17 points), Marquis Jones (16) and Akeem Richmond (10) all reached double figures as URI moved to 8-2 at the Ryan Center this season. High school teammates Alberto Estwick and Chris Gaston, who played for Bob Hurley Sr. at St. Anthony (NJ) HS (Hurley won his 1,000th game on Wednesday), led Fordham (6-14, 0-8) with 18 points apiece. But Fordham was unable to wake up offensively in the second half, allowing Rhode Island to run away as they got the scorers going.

Neither team shot well in the first half with Fordham making 28% of their shots while URI wasn't much better at 32%. Fordham led by as many as six in the first half, with an Estwick three-pointer with 3:13 left pushing the margin out to 25-19. But Rhode Island would score six of the next nine points to go into the locker room down 28-25, with neither team managing a basket in the final 1:33. Rhode Island would then score 11 of the first 12 points of the second half, taking a 36-28 lead with 15:49 remaining on a James layup assisted by Richmond.

Fordham would eventually close to within four (38-34) on a Gaston layup with 13:11 left in the contest, but that would be as close as they'd get the remainder of the game. URI would extend their lead to as many as 16 points before Fordham would make a quick run to cut the lead down to nine (54-45) with 6:51 remaining. But from that point forward it was all Rhode Island, who outscored Fordham 18-7 the remainder of the contest. URI scored 14 points off of 12 Fordham turnovers in the second half, also shooting 55.6% from the field and 66.7% from three. Assist to turnover ratios also tell the story for the second half, with Fordham having one assist to 12 turnovers and URI 12 assists to two turnovers. That will get you beat more times than not, especially on the road.

It was a rough contest in more ways that just the score for Tom Pecora's team, who began the game without Branden Frazier (flu) and lost both Lamount Samuell (leg) and Marvin Domininque (shoulder) in the second half. Next up for Rhode Island is a visit to Temple on Saturday afternoon while Fordham next plays Richmond on Saturday.

Atlantic 10 Conference Basketball Fans

Rams Run Past Fordham