Women's basketball's skid extends to four in another New England loss

Photo Courtesy of Michaela Benford

Things have gone from bad to worse for the Rhode Island women’s basketball team as it fell to 4-7 after a 60-48 defeat to Harvard on Saturday.

The loss extends the Rams’ losing streak to four as they continue to search for answers. Harvard entered the matchup 9-1 after defeating St. John’s, who Rhode Island fell to in November. Rhody haven’t found their scoring groove since coming back from Cancún, where it scored 62 and 50 points respectively. The Rams have scored 45 and 48 points in their return to the United States, falling to Providence and now the Crimson. 

The silver lining for Rhode island was senior guard Sophie Phillips, as she scored 17 points on 6-8 shooting with four triples. As a team the Rams shot 7-18 from behind the arc, and just 3-13 if you remove Phillips from the equation. 

Rhode Island also outrebounded the Crimson 35-25, but had just three second chance points. Rams senior forward Harsmiran Kaur had 11 rebounds, the only player in double digits. The key for Harvard, turnovers. The hosts forced 22 Ram turnovers compared to just nine of its own. Rams junior guard Ines Deborise led all players with five turnovers in her first game coming off the bench this season. 

Up until Saturday, Debroise had been the starting point guard for Rhode Island. The Ivy-League squad scored 24 points off of those turnovers in comparison to the Rams’ nine. Harvard doubled the amount of steals that Rhody had, 10-5, in addition to the forced turnovers from either side. 

Harvard also got to the free throw line more than Rhody, knocking down 9-15 attempts from the charity stripe while URI made just five free throws. The Crimson were also more efficient from the field than the Rams, making 42.3% of their attempts to URI’s 39.1%. 

Rhode Island were outscored in all four quarters of the game, failing to find a complete quarter. URI now prepares for another Ivy League battle with Princeton on Wednesday at 7 p.m. The game is available to be streamed on ESPN+ with an audio broadcast available on The Varsity Network.