PROVIDENCE – URI’s men’s basketball team hung around for a while, but Providence pulled away in the second half to beat the Rams on Saturday afternoon.

The Rams led by one point at the AMP with 13:50 left when Drissa Traore made a 3-pointer, but the Friars took the advantage and never looked back, winning 90-71 in front of an announced attendance of 11,924. The Rams dropped to 7-3 with just three games left of non-conference play. The Friars improved to 6-4 and a perfect 5-0 at home.

“Our inability the last 10 minutes to sort of take the last punch and kind of keep in the game, so to speak, was probably the most disappointing thing,” URI head coach Archie Miller said. “We sort of lost our way defensively.”

The Rams last beat the Friars at the AMP in 2002, when it was called The Dunk. The Friars have now won 11 straight over the Rams in the state’s capital. URI’s last seven wins against the Friars, including in 2024, were at the Ryan Center. Providence now leads the all-time series 78-57. The Rams still haven’t beaten the Friars in back-to-back seasons since 2002 and 2003.

“I’ve always respected this place in terms of its home court advantage,” Miller said. “It’s one of the best facilities on game night in the Big East. When we play in here, it feels like that as well. So we knew we would come into a hard environment. We handled the environment pretty well. I don’t think we handled ourselves very well with the quality of play.”

At first, the Rams came out on fire. A pair of 3-pointers by Jonah Hinton, one 3-pointer each by Tyler Cochran and Alex Crawford, and a layup by Myles Corey put URI up 14-2 just 4:15 into the game. Then, in the span of 2:08, Providence’s Stefan Vaaks made four 3-pointers in a row to erase the URI lead and tie the game at 14-14.

“I think I’m a player who needs one to get going, and when I got one, I got the second one, and then after that I got the third one and the fourth one,” said Vaaks, a native of Estonia. “I just felt good.”

From there, it became a back-and-forth. The Friars went up 28-19 at one point, but the Rams soon took the lead back at 32-30. The Friars led 41-37 at halftime.

URI shot the ball from 3-point range as well as they have all season, making a season-high 14 of 29 from beyond the arc. But when Traore made the Rams’ 11th of the game with 13:50 left to put the Rams up 53-52, they didn’t make another until with 2:49 left when Hinton hit one.

The Rams only scored nine points in between those makes from deep. Providence scored 13 straight points after Traore’s 3-pointer and led 83-62 before Hinton made his.

The 3-point shooting wasn’t the only issue. They struggled in the paint and made just seven free throws. While the Rams aren’t an overpowering team on offense, their defense has usually kept them in games, but they didn’t defend well against the Friars.

Providence shot 31-for-54 (57.4%) from the field and outrebounded the Rams 34-26. Corey, who’s a 6-foot-1 guard, led URI with five rebounds, followed by three players with three each.

“If you look at the 2-point shooting in this game, that’s probably the bigger stat,” said Miller, referencing the 11-for-27 stat on shots from inside the arc. “Not being able to get second chance, not being able to finish. When we did get fouls called, we went 7-for-14 from the foul line…. We just had a lot of things, in terms of being able to win a game like this on the road, that needed to go well. I look at it, and I think our staff will look at it, and I think we’ll say to ourselves that defensively, we need to be a lot better.”

Cochran, who has likely been the Rams’ best player on both ends this season, played just 26 minutes and scored three points against the Friars.

“He didn’t play well, either end,” Miller said. “We’re going to need him to be much better, and we need a more spirited approach from him. As an older guy, when things aren’t going well, we’re going to count on him.”

Hinton scored a game-high 23 points, making 7-of-14 attempts from 3-point range. Corey followed for URI with 15 points, and Jahmere Tripp was next with 12.

A pair of freshmen, Vaaks and Jamier Jones, led the Friars with 18 points each.

The Rams faced McNeese State on Tuesday and lost 66-64. They’ll go back out at the Ryan Center this coming Tuesday against Canisius.