Unpacking Rhode Island's Comeback Win Against Providence on Saturday Afternoon

If there’s a stretch of basketball Providence would like to have back from its 69-63 loss to Rhode Island on Saturday, it might have been the final five and a half minutes of the first half.

The Friars had asserted themselves with an early 11-0 run to quiet the home crowd and went up 33-23 with 5:23 left in the half after Bryce Hopkins knocked down a 3-pointer and Jayden Pierre was fouled on a three of his own — the foul coming from URI’s top scorer, David Green, which sent him to the bench with his second foul.

The game was being played at Providence’s pace, and had it not been for the tough shot making of Rhody senior Jaden House in the opening 20 minutes (14 points on 6-8 shooting), the Rams would have been in trouble.

Eight different Friars scored in the first half, and they were connecting from beyond the arc and getting to the rim:

The Providence offense stalled over the final five minutes of the first half, however, and instead of pushing their ten-point lead to fifteen by the break, PC scored just two points following Pierre’s free throws. They took a 35-28 lead into the half.

CBS Sports’ play-by-play man Jon Sadak summed it up best heading into halftime: “This half was largely dominated by the Friars, but it’s shockingly close by margin.”

That margin was close enough to keep the home crowd engaged coming out of halftime and ultimately set up Providence native Sebastian Thomas to take a starring role in the second half for URI.

PC had done what it wanted in so many key metrics in the first 20 minutes. This was a URI team averaging nearly 88 points per game (they had 28 at the break), scoring over 18 fast break points per game (they had zero at the break), and taking and making more free throws than any team in the country (they were 4-6 at the break).

Green was limited to 2-6 shooting from the field, while Thomas was 0-4 in 19 minutes.

Rhode Island scored on its first two possessions out of halftime to quickly make it a one possession game, but the Friars held them off over the next 8-9 minutes. There was the Bensley Joseph 3-pointer to push the lead back to 38-31, and what looked to be a key sequence when Bryce Hopkins spun and scored for a pretty bucket, and shortly after he put in an offensive rebound to make it 46-38 Friars:

The game swung on a critical possession with just under 13 minutes left.