No, I’m not in the bag for the Rams, but it just so happens that some of my friends have been going to games in the past week. Hey, I don’t have much else to put up here as Saturday unfolds itself on the tubes.

Anyway, Kevin Duffy is an undergrad at the University of Connecticut. He occasionally writes for nbadraft.net and attended the fantastic UMass-URI tilt on Thursday night at the Ryan Center in Kingston. I asked him to recount anything funny or interesting from the experience. Instead, he related almost everything to UConn. Freaking Huskies fans.

Anyway, his report is after the jump.

The Thomas M. Ryan center was rocking. It was the first Rhode Island regular season game to appear on ESPN in years. But amidst all the hype, all the excitement and all the blue, I just couldn’t get excited.

Why? Because I go to UConn.

For me, watching the URI-UMass game was like watching two JV teams scrimmage each other. It was like watching my little brother play in a rec-league game at the local elementary school. No, it was more like watching him play one-on-one in our driveway against his geeky friend wearing khakis and a turtleneck. (Ed. note: Much harder to do than you’d think.)

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but my point is this: URI and UMass both are good mid-major teams, but there is NO WAY they should have ever been ranked ahead of a high-major playing a difficult non-conference schedule. For example, earlier in the season Rhode Island peaked at No. 19 in the polls, and at the time was ranked over a few high-major teams, such as, oh I don’t know…UConn. (Ed. note: Turn the homerism down.)

In recent years, mid-majors have commanded so much respect that, to an extent, they’ve become overrated. I’ve watched every UConn home game from the stands this season and I can say without any bias (okay, maybe just a little bias) that the Huskies would beat both URI and UMass by at least 20 points. (Ed. note: Duly noted.)

Both of these A-10 powers play tough and efficiently, but neither team could contend with the size and athleticism of Jeff Adrien and Hasheem Thabeet on the interior. Watching this game live did nothing but reassure me that my Huskies are indeed once again the class of New England basketball.

But before I totally bash the Rams and Minutemen, I will first admit that each team has a player that could play for anyone in the country. Anyone. I’m talking Memphis, North Carolina, Duke…maybe even Connecticut.

UMass’ Chris Lowe and URI’s Will Daniels are the real deal. At 6-foot-8, 225 lbs, Daniels is big, strong and athletic enough to merit a late first-round pick in next year’s NBA Draft. However, it’s difficult for a small forward to carry an entire team on his back in the NCAA tournament, and that’s what Daniels will have to do to get them out of the first round of the tourney (assuming they get there, which is a big question now). Lowe, UMass’ smooth, cat-quick floor leader won’t have the opportunity at the next level that Daniels does, but he does have the poise and leadership to lead UMass to a potential first-round upset in the NCAA Tournament.

UMass has put together the perfect formula for postseason success. It has a phenomenal point guard and a group of outstanding 3-point shooters. If the Minutemen can creep into the NCAA tournament as an 11 or 12 seed, they could pull off a huge first-round upset. That is, assuming they don’t run into UConn. (Ed. note: Oh, I can only hope they do.)

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 @ 3:01 pm Field Assignments
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