Providence at Rhode Island (+3.5) - 1:00pm Pacific

Despite a local snowstorm, the atmosphere should be electric inside the one year old Ryan Center.  Providence and Rhode Island have played 32 times in a row at the Providence Civic Center, but this will be the Friars first visit to Kingston (Rhode Island campus) since 1972 (31+ years) making this a highly anticipated matchup.  Students are privileged to the first 8 rows on three sides of the Ryan Center court.  Last year, the Rams beat USC, St Joseph's, and Seton Hall here outright, all as a home dog. 

 

In Jim Baron's first season as head coach Rhode Island ended up winning 20 games last season and advanced to the second round of the NIT.  This year they should be even better.  The Rams return 78% of their scoring from last season, including seven of their top eight scorers.  They also return 78% of their rebounding.  Leading scorer Brian Woodward has had an injury plagued career but is as healthy as ever as a fifth year senior season and is one of three players averaging double figures on the season.  The Rams are a deep team with nine players averaging double figures in minutes.  URI owns a quality neutral court victory over Miami, Fla in Las Vegas.  They went on to win the championship of the Las Vegas Invitational tournament beating Lousiana Monroe in the final.  Since then they played very well at Syracuse leading at half-time and losing by just 4 in the Carrier Dome and followed that up with a road win at Ivy League instate rival Brown.

 

Providence heads in with a perfect 3-0 record but they have yet to leave the friendly confines of the Dunkin' Donuts Center.  The Friars also return almost everyone from last years second round NIT team.  They were expecting to get a big scoring lift from the return of Abdul Mills who redshirted last year after leading the team in scoring two seasons ago, but he has not been a factor (1 point in 2 games) thus far.  The Friars lost six of their first seven road games last year and still do not get solid point guard play.  Sophomore Donnie McGrath tries to run the team but it is easy to tell he prefers to shoot first.

 

Rhode Island has clearly played the tougher schedule and should benefit from six regular season games of seasoning and some tight games compared to Providence's three fairly easy wins.  The Rams come into the game with a +14.0 rebounding margin, compared to the Friars who are only +0.7.  With help from a very active home crowd, Rhode Island is both good enough and just as importantly scrappy enough to win this outright.

 

Rhode Island  1 UNIT