Projo Sports Blog

December 21, 2007 Archives

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Kevin McNamara took some time this morning to talk about Saturday's game between the Friars and the Seminoles at the Dunk. Click the play button below to hear Kevin's comments, and see pictures of the two teams and their key players.

Here are some excerpts from Kevin's comments:

On the Sacred Heart game: "At this point in the season a win is definitely a win, and you just forget about it and move on. But I'm sure Tim Welsh has thought an awful lot about his defense the last couple of days heading into Florida State."

On Randall Hanke: "He provides that low-post scoring that any team needs -- shoots an extremely high percentage, has his entire career, and certainly will be counted on against Florida State and throughout the Big East season. Providence needs more help inside, because Hanke has never been a 30-35 minute-a-game player because of foul trouble ... They really need to get Jon Kale up and running again. He didn't play much in the last game. He's a vital player to get back in the mix."

On Florida State: "I happen to like Florida State very much. They have a very good group of guards; they're similar to Providence in that the strength of their team are the guards. The big guys are young and kind of progressing, but the focus is Jason Rich, Isaiah swann and Toney Douglas, their three perimiter players. ... It's going to be a very stiff test for Providence's perimeter players to be able to score and play as well as they have most of the season, because that group that Florida State has is very impressive."

Paul Kenyon took some time this morning to talk about Saturday's game between the Rams and the Pride at the Ryan Center. Click the play button below to hear Paul's comments, and see pictures of the two teams and their key players.

Here are some excerpts from Paul's comments:

How hard will it be to come back from a two-week break? "In this case, I think, a little bit more difficult than it usually is. Just because of the way the first part of the season ended. Obviously, that win at Syracuse was as good a win as the team has had in years. Everybody's flying high. They're 10-1, it hasn't been this good in 10 years at URI, and all the sudden they have to take two weeks off and go through exams. And -- I don't know about the players -- to me it seems even longer. It almost seems like we've finiished one season and the two-week delay seems more like a month, waiting and wanting to see if they can carry this on."

Is reaching the Top 25 a big deal for the players? Absolutely, positively. It certainly is. Jim Baron, being a coach and saying what 99 percent of the coaches would say, is trying to avoid all talk, dismissing it and saying, 'I don't really care.' But if you're anybody else associated with the program, from the players to the fans -- particularly a program like URI that strives for attention and has a very rabid core base of fans, but very much wants to expand that base -- being in the Top 25, with all the extra added attention that brings, would be a major accomplishment."

On Hofstra: "Hofstra as a team is very young. They're going to play three freshmen a lot of the game, and it's a team that URI should beat at this point. But having a guy like [national scoring leader Antoine] Agudio that can light it up makes them a dangerous team."

On today's sports cover, Shalise Manza Young writes about the possibility that Rhode Islanders will not be able to watch the Patriots go for 16-0 against the New York Giants. Robert Lee writes about Junior Seau's resurgent season, and Bill Reynolds has a feature on Providence Country Day basketball coach Tom Sienkiewicz, a Villanova grad who was drafted (but eventually cut) by the Seattle SuperSonics.

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