King Leads Spiders to Win at Rhode Island

Wednesday, February 21

Kingston, RI

7:00 PM

University of Richmond

19-7,11-2Atlantic 10

Rhode Island

11-15,5-8Atlantic 10

Richmond

Rhode Island

02/21/2024 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Kingston, R.I. — Jordan King scored 20 of his 25 points in the second half as the Spiders shot past the Rhode Island Rams on the road Wednesday night, posting an 85-77 win and moving back into first place in the Atlantic 10.

"My first half was horrendous," said King. "I wasn't playing hard. I was just worried about myself. And something just clicked at halftime and I just started playing for the team instead of myself."

King and the Spiders trailed by nine at the under-8 media timeout in the first half (29-20), but closed the gap to two (42-40) by halftime.

"At that media timeout we were just calmly saying, 'This isn't us,'" said Spiders coach Chris Mooney. "This isn't who we've been and what we're trying to do. Our speed needs to show up, because our effort is good, and our aggressiveness is good. We did finish that half much better."

With King leading the way, the Spiders outscored Rhode Island 45-35 in the second half to secure their sixth straight win vs the Rams.

"When we got frustrated, we got ourselves back together. When we got a little emotional, we got ourselves back together," said Mooney of his team, which improved to 6-1 in A-10 road games this season.

Isaiah Bigelow added 14 points and five rebounds, finishing the game three points shy of 1,000 for his career.

Dji Bailey kept the Spiders close in the first half, when he scored 11 of his 13 points. He also contributed six rebounds and three steals.

"He's just been so versatile," said Mooney of Bailey. "So valuable. So alert. So tuned in. So understanding. He just gets steals that seem to be at the right time. He's just been great. I can't say enough about him."

DeLonnie Hunt scored 10 points as did reserve center Mike Walz, notching just the second double-digit scoring game of his career.

"Mike was terrific. During that stretch when we were down nine he had two tip-ins on offensive rebounds. That's not a strength of ours but it is of his," said Mooney.

Walz and the rest of the Spiders bench was stretched a little thin, with reserve wing Jason Roche sidelined with a meniscus injury suffered Saturday at George Washington that will require season-ending surgery.

King and Neal Quinn each had seven assists as UR registered 21 assists for a second straight game, posting more than 20 assists in consecutive games for the first time since December 2019 (at Hampton, vs South Alabama).

"We had a couple of really good baskets where we scored on cutting and that's always good," said Mooney. "Usually for us they're not by design, but a couple of those were designed out of timeouts, and it's great when you can get those because it's two points that nobody had to work that hard for."

Despite the early hiccups, Richmond improved to 19-7 overall and 11-2 in the Atlantic 10. Minutes after the game, the Spiders jumped to first place in the A-10 standings when Dayton (11-3) fell at George Mason.

"Sometimes in the huddles we're bickering a little bit because we just all want to win," said King. "Nothing is better than when guys read the message instead of the tone. I just love that about this team."

Richmond will return to action Saturday at 6 PM vs Davidson at the Robins Center. The game will be broadcast on ESPN Plus and MASN.