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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.

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Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2012 > January > 28 > Entry

Misery has many forms when Rhode Island comes to town

By Tom Archdeacon | Saturday, January 28, 2012, 11:42 PM

No team has brought more misery to UD Arena in the past nine seasons than Rhode Island.

In fact, no team that regularly plays the Flyers holds as lopsided of a winning margin against UD in that span - not even Xavier.

The Rams haven’t just beaten the Flyers on a consistent basis in the past nine years, they’ve broken their hearts.

Counting Saturday night’s 86-81 upset of UD, Rhode Island has won four of its last five games in UD Arena and eight of its last 10 games against the Flyers overall. Four of those game’s have been decided by Rams baskets in the final seconds that crushed UD’s hopes.

Saturday night it didn’t come down to a final dagger as much as it was the repeated jabs by sophomore guard Billy Baron - the son of Rams’ head coach Jim Baron - who made several huge baskets down the stretch and finished with a game-high 25 points.

“Billy Baron was outstanding,” said UD coach Archie Miller.” To score 25 on the road. He neutralized everything in the second half.”

UD came into the game with a 14-6 record and impressive victories over teams like Alabama, Ole Miss, Minnesota, Wake Forest, Xavier, Temple and Saint Louis.

Rhode Island, meanwhile, had won just 3 of its 21 games. They had lost six in a row. Their leading scorer had been kicked off the team last month and Saturday night they were also without junior guard Andre Malone, a 9.3 p.p.g. scorer who had been ruled ineligible before the game because of an unresolved academic matter.

Yet, all of that didn’t seem to matter, Saturday. When the Rams take the court at UD Arena, it’s like they own the place.

The last time they were here - in January of 2010 - they snapped UD’s 30-game home winning streak when Marquis Jones hit a three pointer with 3.4 seconds left to give them the 65-64 victory.

This was the same guy who stunned the Flyers the season before at the Ryan Center when he came driving down the lane in overtime, did a 180-degree spin and banked in a left handed flip before the buzzer to beat UD, 93-91.

Five years ago it was Billy’s older brother Jimmy Baron who left the visiting Flyers reeling when he hit a running scoop shot in the lane with 1.5 seconds left to give Rhode Island the 75-74 victory.

Some years the Rhode Island victories weren’t as unexpected as was Saturday night’s. Several times the Rams have been one of the better teams in the A-10. But this time they came into UD Arena winless in six league games.

But Saturday night the Flyers couldn’t make a defensive stop when they needed to. They relied - to their detriment - on the three-point shot and didn’t pound the ball inside. That led to one glaringly disproportionate stat. They attempted 29 three-point shots, but shot only 10 free throws. Too much long-range bombing, not enough going up with the ball inside and getting hacked.

Add in some costly turnovers in the final minutes and an inability to rebound in the second half like they did in the first 20 minutes and you have the recipe for their collapse.

The loss - especially the way the Flyers deficiencies were exposed — puts a bit of a damper on this feel good season of overachievement and also puts a hole in UD fragile NCAA Tournament resume.

All those big wins will help get you in the field, but a 29-point loss to Buffalo coupled with failures against struggling teams like Miami and Rhode Island erodes all that good fortune.

Yet as numbing as Saturday night’s loss was, it didn’t leave quite the sock-in-the-gut queasiness that the Rhode Island victory did here in March of 2004.

It was the last home game of the season - Senior Night - but the only going away present those Flyers got was a knockout punch from a 6-foot-5 guard named Dustin Hellenga.

With UD’s Ramod Marshall guarding him, he hit a last-second three pointer from deep on the baseline to give the Rams the 65-63 win.

Actually Saturday night had a bit of a déjà vu moment with that 2004 game.

Saturday the UD student section took special delight in needling Billy Baron with chants of” Daddy’s Boy…Daddy’s Boy.” He responded with 25 points.

In 2004, the students rode Hellenga hard after he hoisted up a shot that missed everything with 5:27 left in the game. After that, every time he touched the ball they chanted “Air Ball…Air Ball … Air Ball.”

When he hit that crushing three-pointer for the win right in front of the student section, he didn’t say a word. He just looked over, put his finger to his lips and went “Ssshhhh !”

Saturday night, as the Rams used a different tact to lay claim to UD Arena, they showed silence - and misery — comes in many forms when Rhode Island comes to town.

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