Men's Basketball | January 6, 2023
PHILADELPHIA — The La Salle men's basketball team looks to win its first Atlantic-10 game of the season on Saturday when it faces Rhode Island in its conference home opener at Tom Gola Arena at TruMark Financial Center. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m.
The game will be televised on ESPN+, with Kale Beers and Rich Prendergast delivering the play-by-play and color. Explorers fans can also listen to the broadcast through GoExplorers.com/watch. In addition, Explorers fans can follow the team on Twitter @LaSalle_MBB and Instagram @lasallembb.
The game will also celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2012-13 team's run to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament and will feature a 20th & Olney T-shirt Giveaway.
NEWS & NOTES
- The Explorers will go up against the Rams for the 42nd time in program history. Rhode Island leads the series with a 32-9 record.
- The Explorers are coming off an 80-67 loss to VCU in their A-10 opener last Saturday at VCU. In that game, the Explorers led for the majority of the first half and trailed by two with 9:22 left before VCU pulled away for the win.
- Brantley and Josh Nickelberry have made the Explorers go this season. The dynamic duo in the backcourt has combined for 26.1 points per game, with Brantley scoring 13.9 per game and Nickelberry chipping in 12.2 per contest.
- The Explorers are led by head coach Fran Dunphy, the all-time winningest coach in Philadelphia Big 5 history. A 1970 La Salle graduate, Dunphy sports a 586-333 career record and a 329-130 mark in conference games.
PICKING OPPONENTS' POCKETS
- The Explorers have cracked the top 100 in all of NCAA Division I in terms of steals, as they are ranked 92nd in the country after averaging 7.6 steals per game. They also rank second in the Atlantic-10 in that department.
- The Explorers are coming off one of their best performances of the season as far as taking away the basketball goes, as they recorded a season-high 11 steals against VCU.
- The Explorers have recorded eight or more steals in a game eight times this season.
SERIES HISTORY
- The matchup between La Salle and Rhode Island dates back to 1977.
- The Explorers and Rhode Island were former members of the East Coast Conference before they became members of the Altantic-10.
- The Rams have won the last eight meetings in the series dating back to 2017.
- The Explorers' last win against Rhode Island was on Jan. 12, 2017, when they posted an 87-75 victory at Rhode Island.
BUCKETS FOR NICKELBERRY
- Nickelberry has been able to score plenty of buckets this season, as he ranks eighth in free throw percentage at .833, ninth in the A-10 in three-pointers made per game at 2.3, 22nd in three-point field goal percentage at .352, and 24th in the conference in points per game at 12.2.
- The senior guard is coming off posting his fourth 20-point game of the season after netting 21 points against VCU. Nickelberry has eight career 20-point games and has scored in double figures in 22 career contests. Nickelberry also has led the team in scoring 11 times in his career at La Salle.
- Nickelberry put together his best scoring performance of the season in the first game of the Jamaica Classic, dropping 26 on ACC foe Wake Forest. In the game, Nickelberry shot at an efficient clip, going 6-for 11 from three-point range, 7-for-14 from the field and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line.
- Nickelberry produced the best two-game scoring span of his Explorer career after pouring in 42 combined points in the first two games of the season against Villanova and Wagner. For the second straight season opener, Nickelberry dropped 22 points against the Wildcats on 7-of-12 shooting, including 5-for-9 from beyond the arc. Against Wagner, Nickelberry netted 20 points, 10 of which came from the free-throw line.
SCOUTING RHODE ISLAND
- The Rams enter the game at 5-9 and 1-1 in A-10 play after beating Fordham, 82-79, on Wednesday at home. The Rams' other four wins this season include Stony Brook (74-64), Illinois State (57-44), Army (77-67), and UMass Lowell (77-75 in OT).
- The Rams' nine losses were to Quinnipiac (67-62), Texas State (70-66), Kansas State (77-57), Tulane (78-75), Boston College (53-49), Providence (88-74), Brown (59-58), Georgia State (75-66), and Duquesne (72-61), respectively.
- The Rams finished 12th in the A-10 and made the second round of the conference tournament last season.
- The Rams have two players averaging double figures in Ishmael Leggett and Brayon Freeman. Leggett leads the way with 15.8 points per game, while Freeman has averaged 13.5 points per game.
- Rhode Island is led by Archie Miller, who is in his first season as head coach for the Rams. Coaching his 11th season overall after being the head coach at Dayton and Indiana, Miller has a 211-130 career record.
