Men's hoops edges URI at home, 78-75

The University of Richmond men's basketball team finally found a way to win a close game, beating the University of Rhode Island 78-75 at the Robins Center.

Freshman Francis-Cedric Martel hit a game-winning jumper with 15 seconds left on the clock. Martel got the ball from a double-teamed sophomore Justin Harper.

"They threw the ball to [Harper] and Harp made a great play passing me the ball," Martel said. "I just went up and it went in."

With 10 seconds left, sophomore Marquis Jones was fouled by Harper, sending him to the line for two shots. Jones missed both of the free-throws but the Rams were able to get the ball back on a jump-ball call.

On the inbounds play, Jones got the ball and tried to pass it to senior Jimmy Baron. The pass was too wide and it went out of bounds.

Sophomore Kevin Anderson added a late free-throw to give the Spiders their final margin of victory. Senior Kahlem Seawright's full-court shot was on-target, but fell short of the basket as time expired, sealing the victory for the Spiders.

"We executed down the stretch," Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. "Even at the very end we forced a turnover on the inbounds play. On offense I think we scored on just about every possession down the stretch."

Richmond is now 2-7 in games that were decided by nine points or less. Overall, the Spiders improved to 10-8 and 2-1 in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

"It was a big win for us," Anderson said. "We dropped games late with three minutes left and we feel like we took a step forward tonight."

Harper set a career high with 28 points while playing all 40 minutes of the game. He also had a game-high nine rebounds.

"The coaches told me to be a lot more aggressive," Harper said. "My father also told me to be more aggressive. I have a lot of opportunities in our offense to show what I can do and attack the basket. I haven't been doing that as of late, but tonight I was able to attack the basket and it ended up resulting in one of my better games."

Four of the five Richmond starters scored in double figures. Along with Harper's 28, Anderson and junior David Gonzalvez added 15 points each. Senior Jarhon Giddings also added 10 points.

"Justin Harper is just ready to emerge as a great player," Mooney said, "and tonight was certainly his best game to date. Not just the numbers he put them up but the way he put them up."

On defense, the Spiders held Baron to only nine points, the first time all year that he did not score at least 10 points. Baron had been averaging 17.5 points per game this season.

"Before this game and in our practices," Harper said, "coach stressed that we have to be all over Baron. Most of their offense is running screens and him coming off screens off the ball and trying to get those shots."

Richmond had the lead for most of the game and was ahead by as many as 10 points in the first half. Down the stretch of the game, the two teams constantly traded the lead. The game had 14 lead changes and 11 ties.

"[Basketball] is so much a game of runs," Mooney said. "I think every team is trying to control the runs and nobody can."

The Spiders will now travel to the University of Saint Louis for a 2 p.m. game on Sunday.

"This is a game on Sunday that is a very difficult road game in-league," Mooney said. "But a game that is probably winnable. If we can bottle this up a little bit, it's going to be a dogfight the way they play. It's going to be a game that comes down to the wire."

Contact staff writer Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu