A tired and weary Massachusetts women’s basketball team will be looking for a refreshing victory Saturday at Rhode Island, in a rematch of the teams’ Jan. 12 meeting – a 91-53 UMass victory.

The Minutewomen (11-11, 3-4 Atlantic 10) are coming off a close road win over La Salle, 66-63. They scored on their last seven possessions and took the lead with a jumper from senior forward Kate Mills with 38 seconds left.

Pam Rosanio injured her knee in the game against La Salle. She was taken to the emergency room and was out of the hospital at 6 a.m. yesterday morning. One of the coaches stayed with Rosanio and returned to Amherst yesterday. The senior forward has never missed a game in her four years at UMass and Saturday will not be any different.

“She’s going to play,” UMass coach Marnie Dacko said. “It’s a gut check to see where your team is at this point and after last night they played team basketball the bench was really in it. I was really happy.”

In the first meeting between the teams this season, the Minutewomen took a 42-19 lead into the locker room. UMass converted 19-of-20 attempts from the free-throw line and also hit 3-of-5 shots from behind the arc.

Rosanio led all scorers with 23 points on an efficient 7-of-8 from the floor, while Mills contributed 19 points.

The Minutewomen met URI (10-12, 3-4 A-10) twice last season, and much like this year, had success at home, recording a 79-49 win. However, they dropped a 71-69 overtime game in Kingston earlier in the season.

“What bothers me a little bit is we beat them so easily here and when that happens you don’t want to rest on your heels,” Dacko said. “We have to go there and we know how tough it is to play on the road, we haven’t been a great road team.”

UMass is 2-8 on the road this season and looks to win two straight road games for the first time this year. This will be the Minutewomen’s 61st matchup against the Rams. They are 32-28 all time against them and are 15-12 at URI.

Both teams have identical records in the A-10 at 3-4, standing in ninth place.

“We have to hate losing more than we like winning,” Dacko said. “It was a hard-fought battle [against La Salle], and getting in at 3:30 in the morning, we have to turn around and make this road trip happen.”

Dacko is pleased with the recent play of the team, but when assessing them she pointed out a lot of things they could do better. While they shoot the ball well at 44 percent – which leads all A-10 teams – they do not get enough shots off because they commit too many turnovers. They rank near the bottom of the conference in turnovers with 18.6 but are ranked No. 1 in assists, with 17.45 per game.

“I’m happy we cut down our turnovers (12 turnovers against La Salle) and I’m happy with the defensive intensity in the second half (held La Salle to 34 percent shooting),” Dacko said.

URI features senior forward Safi Mojidi, averaging 13.9 points per contest and shooting 42 percent from the perimeter.

“She’s hot and cold, if she gets her head she is just very confident and if we can just disrupt her tempo and disrupt her flow she’s going to be easy to play,” Dacko said about Mojidi. “If she gets her head and [freshman Megan] Shoniker gets her head then they have the green light to score.”

Shoniker, who along with Mojidi was limited to eight points in the teams’ prior game against the Minutewomen, is another talented outside shooter, as she is hitting close to 36 percent of her 3-pointers.

Against these outside shooting threats Dacko may be tentative to move to a zone defense, however, she is not 100 percent comfortable with the man-to-man defense either. She is more comfortable mixing and match defenses to confuse URI and make them adjust constantly throughout the game.

“I think they are going to be prepared for us to play in a 3-2 zone because that’s how we played them last in our last outing, were going to have to mix it up to keep them on their heels,” Dacko said.

The team is battling some injuries and the turnaround from Philadelphia back home and then on to Rhode Island doesn’t give them much time to heal. Dacko would like another day, but she is not using that as an excuse going into the Rhode Island game.

According to Dacko, the keys for the Minutewomen to win will be to dictate the tempo, limit turnovers and do better rebounding the ball.

“It doesn’t take skill to rebound, it takes heart, it takes effort, it takes determination,” Dacko said. “Those things we have control of like dive on loose balls, really crashing offensively, defensive box-outs [and] limiting turnovers.”

Steve Games can be reached at [email protected].