Providence-URI basketball rivalry
Here’s the thing about the Providence-URI basketball rivalry
- URI’s men’s basketball team will play home games against VCU, Loyola Chicago, Saint Joseph’s, and Saint Louis.
- The Rams will play home-and-home series against George Mason, Duquesne, Fordham, La Salle, and Richmond.
- URI added eight transfer players to its roster for the 2025-26 season.
Single home games against multiple Atlantic 10 contenders highlight the conference schedule for the University of Rhode Island men‘s basketball team.
Defending champion VCU, Loyola Chicago, Saint Joseph’s and Saint Louis will all pay lone visits to the Ryan Center in 2025-26. The Ramblers snagged the final double bye at the league tournament while the Hawks and Billikens rounded out the top six in the standings.
Phil Martelli Jr. will be back in the state after leading Bryant to an NCAA Tournament berth and accepting an offer to replace Ryan Odom on the sideline at VCU. Those Rams swept regular-season and tournament crowns to claim the lone March Madness bid from the conference. VCU fell to BYU before Odom was hired away to in-state rival Virginia.
URI will square off home-and-home with a less impressive group from the 2024-25 season. George Mason is the clear headliner, a surprise runner-up to VCU that finished 27-9 overall. The Patriots posted at least 20 wins for the second straight year under coach Tony Skinn, who replaced current Providence coach Kim English ahead of the 2023-24 season.
Duquesne, Fordham, La Salle and Richmond will also take on Rhody home and away. The Dukes were the only team among that quartet to escape the bottom three in the regular season last year, finishing a game ahead of the Rams in league play. URI suffered a sour conference tournament loss to the Bronx version of the Rams, an 88-71 stinker on the opening day of play.
Davidson, Dayton, George Washington and St. Bonaventure will host URI for single road games. That means a return to UD Arena for URI coach Archie Miller, a place where he led the Flyers to an Elite Eight and three other NCAA Tournament appearances. The Revolutionaries and Bonnies both finished 9-9 in league play last season.
The Rams return just forward Drissa Traore to their rotation after finishing 18-13 overall and 7-11 against conference foes in 2024-25. URI beat Providence, Yale and Charleston as part of a strong nonconference performance before finding it much more difficult to make progress in the league. The Rams improved by one win in the conference from 2023-24 and have won just one of their last seven tournament games.
URI hit the transfer portal hard in the spring, adding eight new players. Jahmere Tripp (Fordham), Jonah Hinton (St. Bonaventure), Alex Crawford (Fresno State), Myles Corey (South Alabama), RJ Johnson (Charleston Southern), Tyler Cochran (Minnesota), Mouhamed Sow (Saint Peter’s) and Keeyan Itejere (Northern Kentucky) all committed to the Rams with a chance to carve out immediate roles.
On X: @BillKoch25
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
