Dayton (12-1, 11-0 Atlantic 10) vs. Richmond (10-6, 7-4 A-10):

On Friday, the Dayton Flyers improved to 10-0 in Atlantic 10 conference play with an 18-point win over the Richmond Spiders, 72-54.

Outside of an OT win versus the Saint Louis Billikens and a loss to a non-conference opponent in the Akron Zips early in the season, the Flyers have been dominant this year.

After a five-game road trip, Dayton didn’t waste any time settling back in at UD Arena. Back on their home court, the Flyers came out red hot to start the game. They dropped 21 points in the first quarter.

Although Richmond and Dayton shot similar percentages from the field and 3-point range, the Flyers got off 23 more shots than the Spiders.

Richmond also struggled to move the ball around. They committed 13 turnovers and only totaled 10 assists for the game. Dayton, on the other hand, had a total of 15 assists and 11 turnovers.

Fordham (11-3, 8-2 A-10) vs. Rhode Island (8-6, 8-3 A-10):

The Fordham women’s basketball team defeated the Rhode Island on Sunday, Feb. 7. After falling behind nine points early in the third quarter, Fordham came back to defeat URI.

The comeback couldn’t have been done without the outstanding play of Anna DeWolfe, who, after a sluggish start, put up 14 points in the last 16 minutes of the game. Although DeWolfe had 18 points to finish the game, she did turn over the ball quite a bit with five turnovers and only one assist. Fordham struggled with turnovers the whole game, though, as they gave up 13 turnovers total and had only eight assists as a team.

Other notable contributors for the Fordham Rams were Kendell Heremaia scoring 11 points and Kaitlyn Downey who dropped 10 points and snatched 12 rebounds for a double-double.

What seemed like it would be a URI win in the beginning, ended up being a debacle on the floor.

At the beginning of the game, Rhode Island lived up their mantra for being a stingy defense, which showed when Fordham struggled to get anything going.

The first quarter would go URI’s way as they would score 17, and Fordham would only score 12 points. The second quarter would be closer as both teams scored 11, and then the script would flip in the third quarter when Fordham would score 18 points to only 12 for Rhode Island.

The score was 41-40, heading into the fourth, Fordham leading URI. It looked like Rhode Island was going to let the game slip out of their hands, but they also rallied and retook control early in the fourth quarter, scoring six unanswered.

Neither team wanted to give in, which was apparent when Fordham would score seven-straight points and take the lead back, 48-46.

Free-throw shooting would be the decisive factor in this game as Fordham would make six free throws in the game’s final 90 seconds. Fordham would shoot 90 percent from the free-throw line (9-10), compared to URI’s 50 percent mark from the line (1-2).

Fordham would improve to 7-2 in conference play after the game, placing them third in the A-10 standings behind URI and Dayton.

Currently, Fordham sits at second in the A-10 at 8-2, after beating another A-10 opponent Saint Joseph’s. URI is now third in the standings at 8-3. It will be interesting for A-10 fans to see what the standings look like at the end of the season.

Rhode Island (8-6, 8-3 A-10) vs. Saint Joseph’s (5-7, 3-7 A-10):

The Rhode Island played the Saint Joseph’s Hawks in an overtime thriller on Sunday, Jan. 31. Saint Joseph came into the game at 5-2, and URI was 6-5.

The game was played at Rhode Island’s home court in Kingston, R.I., the Ryan Center. Neither team’s offense played very well as both the Hawks and Rams shot under 34 percent from the field and under 20 percent from three.

Saint Joseph’s bench was impressive as they scored 23 points, nearly half of the total points the team scored. On the other hand, URI had to lean heavily into their starters as the bench only scored eight points total.

Even though URI turned over the ball more than the Hawks—22 compared to 15 turnovers committed by Saint Joseph’s, URI was able to capitalize. The Rams scored 17 points off turnovers, while the Hawks only scored 11 points off turnovers.

Going into the fourth quarter, URI led 39-32. Saint Joseph’s locked in on defense and only gave up three points to the Rams for the entire quarter. The Hawks, on the other hand, scored ten and were able to tie it up to force OT.

In overtime, Rhode Island was able to fend off Saint Joseph’s late push and rally to score eight points and allow only six to the Hawks.

URI won by two points, and it couldn’t have been done without the stellar play of Marie-Paule Foppossi who scored 19 points on 8-of-16 shooting with 16 rebounds and nine points from Emmanuelle Tahane.

Rhode Island currently sits third and Saint Joseph’s sits at 11th in the A-10 standings as of today.

Pablo Quiceno can be reached at [email protected].