Game 19, 2017-18: at Rhode Island (1/17)

[MikeUMA]

Looks like this will be our toughest challenge of the season. Yesterday's RPI had Rhody at 15.

Game appears to be on the stupidest channel I've ever heard: YurView from Cox. I believe that's on Cox channel 4 / 1004, and may stream here:
https://www.yurview.com/nelive6_ribasketball
But I can't tell if that'll only work for Cox subscribers.

Might be an audio-only night for most of us.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

^

More reason to buy tickets and get down there instead.

https://ev8.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerc ... 7MBSingles

[gosox22]

Win this game and you should really start seeing people flood back into the Mullins Center. Certainly not expecting a win, but boy oh boy would that be start to make things realllly interesting around here...

[minutefanjsf]

This will be a snowy day, reminiscent of a day back in December of 2004 against another New England team.....

[MJatUM]

We have NOT played well away from home, save for at Dayton, but the boys have to be up for this game. I would hope they bring the same intensity as they brought against PC and UGA - and hopefully some of the winning at Dayton when the crowd was buzzing at the end of that game will take some of the crowd out of it. I'm thinking URI will probably be double digit favorites and hopefully we can avoid a Bona redux. Trying to make my way down for this one (buddy is a URI STH). Also - F Hurley, guy is a tool.

[UncleDov]

I took the initiative to email Thorr Bjorn, AD at URI this morning. Thorr was at UMass for 15 years in AD ticket office and became an associate AD before leaving for URI. Asked about stream by Cox. Received a reply that it will be free to anyone. No link was provided, but response says it will be posted to the schedule as well as in the game preview on GoRhody. Hope this works.

[LS71]

^ Excellent...thanks for sharing that info!

[UMass87]

I'm expecting URI to blow UMass out of the Ryan Center. Keeping this game remotely close will be an achievement. If they do get blown out then I expect MM will get them back on track for SLU. URI is not at all a good matchup for UMass (two senior guards as leading scorers - deep guard-heavy lineup). I don't believe UMass is deep enough to hang with URI regardless of how well conditioned UMass is.

[NilesGold]

^ I don't think it's URI's depth that's going to be the issue, but rather all of the other things you correctly pointed out. URI is a terrible matchup for UMass, they over-defend the perimeter and maul you when you attack the rim. Pipkins & Pierre aren't going to get much daylight and without Holloway we can't really attack them in the post. UMass doesn't draw fouls well and they certainly can't be expected to draw them on the road. UMass also struggles to defend guards that can attack the rim and URI has at least 2 really good guards who can do just that.

[MJatUM]

^ Yeah this is going to be a very frustrating game. They seem to have adopted the old VCU defense of foul on literally every single possession and make the refs call it.

[MJatUM]

Also, my favorite part about URI games? Visiting their board to see all the people still crying about the Matt Glass pick

[Steve81]

This URI thread starts with a very long preview to the game and has a lot of interesting posts.

http://keaneyblue.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7253

Most interesting is that the students can win a bus ride to UMass on Jan 30th.

https://twitter.com/RhodyMBB/status/952 ... 96/photo/1

Also this classic of Matt Glass with 3.8 seconds left in '09.

https://youtu.be/LYSDWvemADU

[NilesGold]

This URI thread starts with a very long preview to the game and has a lot of interesting posts.

http://keaneyblue.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7253

The poster "Blue Man" is certainly quite the specimen.

[Steve81]

Yes NilesGold, Blue Man is something else.

On a personal level - I had gotten in fights in high school at PC games. That kind of wore off.

There was never a time as a student that fists didn't get thrown at Amherst. In rugby, I can say without a doubt in my 10+ years of playing at the collegiate and men's levels, even overseas - they were the dirtiest, scummiest, worst group of men I've ever played against.

Their fans, their people, their teams...all scum. In all sports. In all walks of life.

Just because we lost a couple of close games to a non-conference rival who affected our NCAA standing not one iota - will never equal the hurt I still hold from the '09 senior day game. Matt Glass threw one of the dirtiest moving picks I've ever seen on Ulmer and Chris Lowe took so many steps that Sportscenter stopped the highlight to count them.

If any of you need a reminder of why you should hate them more than PC, why don't you find the video clip and press play? Maybe it'll bring back the contingent of UMass fans from the rafters screaming U-MASS all over the arena while I sat in my seat in complete silence until the arena lights started to get turned off?

For all of you blind PC haters, at least this rivalry is steeped in history that continued while the internet and videos existed.

That wrapped up another patented Baron Collapse, and kept us from another NCAA tournament birth.

If this rivalry doesn't get the blood flowing and you look at it as a cute sibling rivalry that doesn't have actual hatred, I am lost on what I should say to you.

Fuck UMass. Bury them Wednesday.

[InnervisionsUMASS]