Rams thrilled to see Terrell taking charge
Senior looks to keep it going as URI hosts Brown tonight
KINGSTON —The URI men's basketball team is starting to make a tradition of unwrapping early Christmas presents.
Last year, it was a seasondefining triumph over nationallyranked Cincinnati at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off, with a late corner 3-pointer by E.C. Matthews sealing the resume-bolstering win. This time around, the Rams were again in a holi- day tournament, the NIT Season Tip-Off and Jared Terrell gave Rhody something to celebrate by hitting a last-second shot to down No. 20 Seton Hall, 7574.
Terrell was expected to shoulder a greater load with Matthews on the shelf with a broken wrist, and he did that and more against the Pirates on Thanksgiving night. In addition to driving down the lane for the tough-angle winning
shot, Terrell poured in a career-high 32 points on 9-17 shooting from the field and a 10-10 mark from the line.
“I definitely got into a little bit of a rhythm,” Terrell said. “My teammates were able to find me when I was open and I was able to get to the rim and create shots for myself as well.”
“It was an in-the-moment thing,” he said, of the winning shot. “The ultimate thing was to win the championship which we fell short of. We're on to the next thing, which is Brown. That's what we're really focused on.”
For his Herculean effort in last Thursday's game, Terrell was named the Atlantic 10 Player of the Week. Rather than bask in the glory of hitting a game-winner and earning recognition from his conference, the soft-spoken Terrell passed all the credit along to his teammates.
“The greater award is just winning, for me,” he said. “My teammates – I owe it to them. They help me get better in practice and throughout the games.”
“You’re a senior and that's what you need to do to get those significant wins,” head coach Dan Hurley said. “Against Cincinnati last year, Jared and E.C. both closed that game out. Jared was amazing [against Seton Hall].
“He deserved [the conference award]. It was a huge win for the conference. There have been some great guard performances this year in college. My brother [Bobby Hurley] had a guy [Tra Holder] drop 40 the other day in a win over Xavier. Saw [Oklahoma's] Trae Young drop 40 [against Oregon]. Putting 32 on a rugged Big East team in what was kind of a rock-fight second half is impressive.”
Terrell's feast on Thanksgiving paved the way to a shot at defensive-minded Virginia in the championship round on Friday. Still without the services of two starters, Matthews and Cyril Langevine, the Rams were unable to post a second straight upset, falling 70-55.
“We're thrilled with the Thursday win, to get a win like that against a top-20 team,” Hurley said. “It was impressive to do it without two key guys. Kicking ourselves a little bit about Friday. We had opportunities there in the second half. Free throw line, big missed putback. If we make a reasonable amount of those free throws, I think we play that game close to the end. Felt great how we came out of that, with at least the one quality win.”
The Rams were 7-14 from the line on Friday, after going 16-17 the day prior. Andre Berry (team-high 12 points) was 2-7 after starting the season off with eight straight makes.
Rhody will look to build on the win over the Pirates this week, when they take on two instate foes. First up is Brown, a team that Hurley has gotten the better of in the first five tries he's had since he came to Kingstown. Even with that spotless record, the Bears have been a pesky thorn in the side of the Rams for the past few seasons.
Last year, URI escaped with a 79-72 victory. Prolific scorer Steven Spieth kept his Bears in that game all the way down to the wire, but an 18-point performance by Terrell helped to keep the now-graduated senior at bay. Two years ago Hurley and co. needed to make a wild 15-point second half comeback to defeat the Bears in overtime, 88-85.
“They play small-ball a little bit,” Hurley said of Brown. “Last year they played [Josh] Howard at the five against us. This year, he's playing more of the four, the stretch-four spot. They're gritty and tough, they reflect [head coach Mike Martin's] personality.”
The Bears are one of the youngest teams in Division I this season, sporting a roster with no seniors and three juniors. Per kenpom.com, Brown is 341st in prior D-I playing experience, while URI comes in at 28th.
Sophomore Brandon Anderson has been tasked with being a major scorer and facilitator for Brown. The 6-foot-1 guard has been able to bully his way to the hoop, already having shot 51 free throws through five games. He connects at the line at an 85 percent clip, and leads the team in assists with 25.
“Mike has put together a heck of a talented, young team,” Hurley said. “Anderson at the point, he played really well against us here [last year]. Really, really talented young team. 4-2 this year, great win over Bryant yesterday. They're a program that's on the rise.”
Anderson scored 16 points against URI last season, in what was just the third collegiate game of his young career. He has scored more than 20 points in each of the last two games this year, and has reached that plateau in all but one game overall.
With their main rival PC looming on Saturday, Hurley and Terrell spoke about not looking past the task ahead of them on Tuesday night.
“We know Brown is a good team, they have good players,” Terrell said. “We're focused on them, making sure we can take of that first [before thinking about PC].”
“We lost on Friday,” Hurley replied when asked about Tuesday's game being a trap game. “We're not coming off two big wins. We had a great win and then for 25 minutes we had a chance to [beat Virginia].
“We talked about what a trap game is and this doesn't fit the definition of it for us. We just lost. If we had won the championship, it may be a trap game, but fellas, we're 3-2 and they're 4-2. There's no reason to sleepwalk through any game on our schedule because when it's all said and done we'll probably play a top-five strength of schedule in the country. We have to be ready every night.”
Matthews will be out for both in-state games this week, but Hurley indicated that Langevine may be able to return to the court for one, or both, of the games.
“We feel good about Cyril, this is the best we've felt,” he said. “He was not in a position to play Thursday/Friday, but he's been a lot more active in practice. That's an upward trajectory with his health right now.”