SOUTH KINGSTOWN \u2013 Tyler Cochran has played a lot of college basketball. Six years, in fact. He knows the ups and downs of the sport better than most \u2013 and that there\u2019s always a chance if there\u2019s time left on the clock.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasketball\u2019s a long, long season,\u201d Cochran said on Saturday. \u201cIt\u2019s far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cochran and his URI teammates have embraced that mindset. Seventeen days after they lost to La Salle to fall to 0-3 in A-10 play, the Rams toppled league leader George Mason 74-65 at the Ryan Center on Saturday afternoon for their third win in the last four games. They won again on Tuesday night, beating Dayton (14-7, 5-3) by 81-76 score in overtime on the road to improve to 4-4 in A-10 play and 13-8 overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a big believer that you\u2019ve got to stand in there, that you\u2019ve got to tell them the truth,\u201d head coach Archie Miller said Saturday. \u201cWe have to keep learning. At the end of the day, if they continue to show up the right way over and over again, you\u2019re going to find a way to break through. This team, under some adverse circumstances to start January, is just staying with it. Today was a big one because we haven\u2019t been good at home, and we also played, arguably, one of the top teams in our league.\u201d<\/p>\n
George Mason entered at 18-1 and 6-0 in A-10 play, its only defeat coming against Virginia Tech of the ACC. They shared first place in the A-10 with Saint Louis, which remains undefeated in conference play.<\/p>\n
The Rams were coming off a dramatic win over Richmond last Wednesday and made it two in a row with their best victory of the season. It was also their first A-10 win at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just shows that we stay connected,\u201d URI\u2019s Jahmere Tripp said. \u201cWhen we lose, we don\u2019t get down. We just do everything we can to make sure the next one\u2019s ours. This is the first team \u2013 I\u2019ve been on many teams, losing teams \u2013 where we just have great energy in the locker room. We don\u2019t get down, we don\u2019t get mad at each other. It\u2019s showing. We\u2019re not giving up. We\u2019re getting better every game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Patriots beat URI 61-50 earlier this month, but the Rams turned the tables in the rematch thanks to a better offensive performance, their lowest turnover total of the season and stout defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our defense carried us,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t perfect by any stretch, but our defense definitely carried us. When our defense was able to create some offense, we were able to take advantage of some opportunities\u2026. I\u2019m proud of our guys. Beat a good team today.\u201d<\/p>\n
A fast start got the crowd of 4,487 engaged and set the home team on a good course. The Rams scored the first six points of the game and kept pushing until it was 17-4. They made their first six shots from the field.<\/p>\n
The hot shooting didn\u2019t last forever, of course. After a bucket at the 12:48 mark made it 19-11, the Rams went more than seven minutes without a point, missing 11 straight shots. In the meantime, George Mason climbed back into the game and took the lead at 21-19.<\/p>\n
Droughts like that have been common for the Rams this year, but they managed to push through this one and stayed in the game. A late 3-pointer by the Patriots gave them a 33-32 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
The second half started with another URI heater. Tripp slammed home a dunk on the break to key an 8-0 spurt. URI never gave up the lead after that, continuing to defend while leaning on Cochran and Tripp to hold the offensive attack steady.<\/p>\n
George Mason got within one point with 5:40 left but the Rams followed with a decisive 7-1 spurt, allowing no field goals in that span, and finished strong. Cochran was an alpha on key possessions, driving the lane for buckets or drawing fouls.<\/p>\n
\u201cTyler was super solid,\u201d Miller said. \u201cOffensively, he\u2019s really playing under control \u2013 driving the ball, getting to the basket, making good decisions. He got to the free-throw line for us tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tripp scored a career-high 23 points to lead the Rams. Cochran matched a season-high with 20 points. Jonah Hinton, who left with a lower leg injury during the second half, added 13 points. Hinton did not play Tuesday at Dayton.<\/p>\n
URI shot 46 percent from the field and committed just four turnovers, the Rams\u2019 best mark of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve talked to them long and hard about how that\u2019s just been such a hard thing for us to overcome,\u201d Miller said of the turnovers. \u201cIn particular at home, if you singled one thing out on why we\u2019ve struggled at home, it\u2019s been that.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Rams can notch another win on Sunday at Duquesne (11-9, 3-4), they\u2019ll have a winning record in conference play for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cFelt great in the arena,\u201d Miller said. \u201cHappy for our fans, happy for our players to be able to play in front of our fans and get a win. It means a lot to our guys. Just being able to play well at home and get a win for everybody is a little bit of a sigh of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH KINGSTOWN \u2013 Tyler Cochran has played a lot of college basketball. Six years, in fact. He knows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,319,217,231,772,1544,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-568556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115978642617860720","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}