La Salle Defeats Rhode Island in Hard Fought Game

               In a game that was a little to close for comfort, the La Salle Explorers defeated the Rhode Island Rams 72-65.  The win improved the Explorers record to 19-7 while the Rams fell to 8-18.  The Rams figured to be an easy win for an Explorers team that has NCAA Tournament aspirations, but was anything but that.
 Rhode Island fought hard the entire game and went into the half with a 30-27 lead.  La Salle was plagued by bad shooting in the first half, shooting 30.4%.  It was a different story in the second half however as the Explorers shot 55.2% to average out a final shooting percentage of 44.2 for the game.  While the Rams gave La Salle a tough game, they were just outclassed in the second half of the game, with the Explorers going on a 30-12 run at one point.  After that run the game was pretty much in hand, but the Rams continued to keep the game slightly to close for comfort.
              As is the case with many of their games, the team runs along with the play of Tyreek Duren. The junior guard scored 21 points on the day in 37 minutes of playing time.  Tyrone Garland, Jerrell Wright, and Ramon Galloway also had solid games for the Explorers, contributing 14, 12, and 13 points respectively.  Wright also grabbed 15 rebounds in the game.  While La Salle was able to pull out the victory, they cannot afford to allow lowly teams such as Rhode Island to stay in games with them at this point in the season.  The Explorers must put away sub-par squads early in games, to prevent the possibility of being upset.  This late in the season La Salle cannot afford any slip ups if they hope to qualify for the NCAA Tournament with an at-large bid.  The Explorers have three games remaining in the regular season, against lowly teams Duquesne and George Washington, before finishing off the season against the Atlantic 10 leading Saint Louis Bilikens.  The Explorers cannot afford a loss in the first two games, and while a loss against Saint Louis would not be a bad loss, if the Explorers hope to gain an at-large bid they will most likely need to win that game also.  After the remaining games it is on to the A-10 Tournament with an automatic bid up for grabs.  If the Explorers can manage to win out the regular season they most likely will not need to worry about the A-10 Tournament, but a single loss could mean that the Explorers will need a deep A-10 Tournament run if they still plan on going dancing in March.