Rhode Island women's basketball tops Massachusetts: Here's how they did it
SOUTH KINGSTOWN — University of Rhode Island women’s basketball coach Tammi Reiss acknowledged that Massachusetts is tough. The reigning Atlantic 10 coach of the year said her Rams needed a physical conference contest. And they got it.
“I thought our halftime adjustments and what we needed to do to impose the physicality and battle back a little bit we did in the third and fourth quarter,” Reiss said.
Rhode Island forced 13 second-half turnovers and pulled down nine offensive rebounds to outmatch the Minutewomen, 63-48, on Saturday afternoon in front of 1,674 fans at the Ryan Center.
The Rams (14-8, 6-3 A-10), led by Mayé Touré’s 15 points, upped the pressure with a full-court press midway through the contest and scored 22 points off turnovers.
More: Rhode Island women's basketball comes up short against St. Joseph's; here's what happened.
“We'll mix it up a lot,” Reiss said of the defensive looks. “Even though, if we didn't turn them over, they were operating their half-court offense with 18 seconds to go. They were all just discombobulated and [had] no rhythm.”
For more on how URI topped rival UMass in their 92nd meeting, read on:
URI's halftime adjustments ‘got them out of sorts’
Rhode Island built a 32-27 lead at the intermission with full-court pressure, but couldn’t break the contest open in the first 20 minutes.
Then the Rams exited the break on a jumper in the lane from Touré off a turnover. Forced to go the length of the court, the Minutewomen (3-18, 1-8) had an off-balance look denied as Touré again finished inside, falling away with her right hand, on the other end.
“Our goal today was really to disrupt them with lateral pressure,” Reiss said. “It may not [have] affected them in the first half as much, but then we changed our pressure. We started reading [the passing lanes] a little bit, trapping and really just got them out of sorts, so they couldn't pick us apart in the second half.”
Following Touré’s second basket in the sequence, the 6-foot-2-inch forward made a stop in the lane that went wide to Dee Dee Davis. The guard went coast-to-coast with a left-handed finish through contact at the rim and connected on the free throw for a 39-30 advantage with 7:27 left in the frame.
“One of the reasons we brought her here is she's a sparkplug,” Reiss said of Davis, a transfer from Manhattan College. “She's got energy, she likes to press and she likes to get into people. When she's feeling it, she's really good.”
The URI lead swelled to a 41-30 advantage before UMass broke the press. Sophie Phillips chipped in 13 points for the rams.
Unforced errors hurt URI
The Rhode Island offense, at times, lost possession or just looked asynchronous. Davis had five turnovers and the Rams managed 18 turnovers to just 15 assists for the game. “Not so happy with the way we threw the ball around the gym today repeatedly,” Reiss said.
Related: Rhode Island women's basketball comes up short against St. Joseph's; here's what happened
The Rams fumbled away a 10-point lead in the first half with a pair of giveaways for a 7-0 run for UMass. And didn’t close the door, despite leading wire-to-wire, until Phillips’ triple from an off-ball screen with 3:16 left in regulation.
“We've got to be smart, we've got to be able to execute because you will not beat teams turning the ball over 18 times,” Reiss said.
Stefanie Kulesza paced Massachusetts with 15 points and six rebounds, while Alexsia Rose scored 11.
The Rams haven’t managed true back-to-back road wins this season. They’ll travel to George Washington and then Duquesne, who is ahead of them in the conference standings, over the next two games.
“When we play back-to-back," Reiss said, "it's more of, we really have to focus on us and how we play at home and on the road."
Contact Jacob Rousseau at jrousseau@providencejournal.com. Follow him on X: @ByJacobRousseau
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: URI women's basketball tops UMass: Here's how they did it
