Rhode Island Basketball: How good will Rams be for 2020-21 season?
By Stu Luddecke
It’s been a hectic summer so far for David Cox and Rhode Island Basketball. They’ve gone from a team with bottom-four (of the A10 standings) potential, to one that could now be a legitimate threat to take home an A10 title.
Immediately after this past season’s abrupt ending, it was impossible to project what Rhode Island Basketball would look like moving forward — not only did they lose key pieces like Cyril Langevine and Jeff Dowtin to graduation, but it was also unknown if First Team All-A10 PG Fatts Russell would be returning to Kingston or keeping his name in the NBA Draft.
As if all that wasn’t worrying enough, two extremely promising young players (among several others) in Jacob Toppin (brother of projected lottery pick Obi Toppin) and Tyrese Martin decided to transfer out of the program. To fill in the holes left by graduation and this “mass exodus,” as some might call it, coach Cox and his staff managed to reel in four intriguing prospects from the transfer portal, but it was anyone’s guess if any of them would receive waivers to compete in this upcoming season.
With so many variables up in the air, things could have turned out atrociously for the 2020-2021 Rams, and you might have been reading right now about a team on its way to a single-digit A10 win total. Instead, the basketball Gods have looked favorably upon the Rams, and not only will Russell be coming back to run the show, but as of August 25, all four of the Rams’ potential sit-out transfers have received waivers to play.
The most promising names in the group are Makhi and Makhel Mitchell, twin four-star big men who played their freshman seasons in the Big 10 with the Maryland Terps. They didn’t wow on the stat-sheet, but that is no reason to count them out as potential household names in the A10, a league that doesn’t land an overabundance of top 100 recruits.
On the wings, Malik Martin (Charlotte 49ers) and Jalen Carey (Syracuse Orange) should also factor heavily into coach Cox’s plans. Martin isn’t likely to have his name in the All-conference mix come March, but he’s a reliable shooter that put up at least 9.0 points per game in each of his first two seasons (albeit in a lower conference), and he should be good enough to take some defensive attention away from guys like Russell.
It’s hard to glean too much from Carey’s numbers at Syracuse, but was the number 52 player in his High School class, so just as with the Mitchell twins: perhaps he won’t add much to the rotation, but there’s also a world in which he steps in and immediately asserts himself as one of the best players at his position in the league.
Add Jeremy Sheppard (transfer who sat out last season), who put up solid numbers as a guard in the AAC with East Carolina, and a strong Freshman class into the mix, and the Rams are looking like a team that may still be somewhat boom or bust, but the “boom” potential needs to be recognized.
It’s still too early to project Rhody finishing ahead of teams like Saint Louis and Richmond (each of whom could easily see Top 25 rankings next to their names before long), but there is too much talent on this roster to count out the possibility of a top-4 finish.
Next. Top 50 returning A-10 players for 2020-21. dark
Before all of this recent news, I had the Rams tentatively projected to finish 10th in the standings. That is still certainly a possibility if chemistry and depth problems arise, but I now expect the team to be right there with the likes of Dayton, UMass, Saint Bonaventure and Duquesne in the mix for a double-bye in the A10 Tournament.