Atlantic 10 Conference Basketball - NIT Tournament

NIT Second Round Recap - Rhode Island vs Nevada

(2) Rhode Island 85, (6) Nevada 83

Sometimes, a game is won by omitting sins instead of accumulating good deeds. While the casual observer might look at points and rebounds as the only sources of basketball success, a coach will much more readily look at the kinds of numbers that don't appear on the stat sheet as the root cause of a meaningful victory.

Such was the case on Monday night for the Rhode Island Rams.

Coach Jim Baron's team had to bear the burden of yet another trek to the NIT this postseason. A program that reached the Elite Eight in 1998 has expected to get back to the Big Dance since Baron - the coach of a 2000 St. Bonaventure ballclub that reached the NCAAs - moved to Kingston, R.I., in 2001. Yet, nine seasons of Baron Ball have failed to deliver a tourney ticket, often because the Rams have imploded in the month of March and have collapsed under pressure. The only way URI was going to change its March fortunes was to change the way it carried itself on the court.

After 40 minutes of thrilling basketball against the sixth-seeded Nevada Wolf Pack, the Rams quite possibly engineered the kind of change they want to see in the college hoops world. It's all because of what Rhode Island didn't do that the second seed managed to advance to Wednesday's NIT quarterfinals.

Yes, URI star Delroy James poured in 34 points while limiting Nevada star Luke Babbitt to just 14 points on 2-of-14 shooting. The result of the night's main mano-a-mano duel certain shaped the outcome as much as anything else which transpired inside the Thomas Ryan Center. However, the factor that cast an even larger shadow over this showdown was the tale of two teams' relationship with turnovers. This is where Rhode Island's omission of basketball vices came to the forefront.

Usually, March is a time for Rhode Island players to become sweaty-palmed and nervous; Baron and the rest of his coaching staff have simply not been able to push the right buttons late in the year, in the Atlantic 10 tournament or other meaningful late-season situations. Monday night marked a departure from that painful pattern, however, as the Rams committed only two turnovers. Yes, two. In 40 minutes. Moreover, 40 minutes of high-octane, up-tempo basketball in which Rhode Island took 71 shots.

When one realizes that slow-paced teams such as Wisconsin, Temple or Butler will take something like 50 shots per game and milk virtually every possession until the final few seconds on the shot clock, it becomes apparent that 71 shots represents a fairly high total for a college basketball game decided in regulation time. Therefore, URI's ability to play at an increased pace and cough up the rock just two times represents a remarkable feat of basketball engineering. Mercedez-Benz researchers and product development specialists would have been very impressed by the sleek efficiency and smooth performance of every Rhode Island player, James in particular.

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Nevada, it bears mentioning, turned the ball over 16 times. More urgently, the Wolf Pack made Coach Dave Carter cringe when trailing by two in the final five seconds of regulation.

Nevada appeared to be done and dusted when Rhode Island took an 82-74 lead with just 39 seconds left, but as the Rams proceeded to miss three of six foul shots, the Wolf Pack chipped away at the deficit and generated enough possession exchanges to pull within two and get the ball in the waning moments. However, an errant pass - the 16th turnover of the evening - frittered away the sixth seed's last chance of upending the second-seeded hosts.

In the end, the absence of stats - rather than the presence of a big number - told the most important story of all. Nevada played hard, but Rhode Island played hard and smart. That's the basic reason why a disappointing season in New England has a chance to gain a measure of redemption.

WHAT'S NEXT

Rhode Island would have hosted the NIT quarterfinals had Gavin Edwards of Connecticut made a chippie at the end of his team's excruciating 65-63 loss to top-seeded Virginia Tech on Monday night. As it is, the No. 2 Rams must make a trek to Blacksburg, Va., to face the Hokies at Cassell Coliseum. Expect a lot of up-and-down racehorse basketball when the Rams and Hokies get after it in the NIT's round of eight.

By: Matt Zemek
A10-fans.com Staff Writer