AMHERST, Mass. - Coming off Thursday night's win over No. 16 ranked VCU, the Richmond men's basketball team heads north to play Massachusetts in a 2 p.m. match-up Sunday.
Richmond (13-7, 3-2 Atlantic 10) won in its last visit to the Mullins Center and had won three-straight against the Minutemen (12-5, 2-2) before UMass defeated the Spiders in the Robins Center last season.
THE LATEST
• Richmond is coming off
back-to-back wins over Atlantic 10 leaders VCU and Charlotte, handing both
teams their first A-10 loss. The Spiders win over No. 16 ranked VCU was the
Spiders' 8th in the last 13 games against ranked teams, including the 4th in
the last 5 in the Robins Center. Chris Mooney now has 9 wins against ranked
teams in his 8 season at Richmond.
• Richmond led VCU for most of Thursday's night city-rival match-up, but the Rams took the lead with under four minutes and extended it to 7 points with 37 seconds left. The Spiders proceeded to cut that lead to 1 after a three-pointer and three free throws by Kendall Anthony and when VCU put it back to 3 with 12 seconds left, Darien Brothers connected on a 28-foot three-pointer with 1.5 seconds to force the game into overtime. In OT it was all Richmond as Anthony scored 9 of his game-high 26 points for an 86-74 win.
• Richmond continues to play without junior forward Derrick Williams - the only Spider big man with any prior collegiate experience. The Spiders will be without Williams, who is 2nd on the team in scoring and leads the team in rebounding, for the 7th-straight game. Richmond is 4-2 without Williams. He is out for at least 2 more weeks.
• Senior Darien Brothers scored the first 17 points on his way to a career-high 39 against Charlotte last Saturday, the most points for a Spider since 1976. Brothers tied the school record with 8 three-pointers vs. Charlotte. He leads the A-10 and is 2nd in the nation in three-point percentage at 50.0 percent. The Richmond native is 4th on Richmond's all-time career list for three-point pct. at 41.6 percent and is 5th on the career list for three-pointers with 180, having passed Kevin Anderson and Justin Harper. He is 31st on Richmond's all-time scoring list with 1,120 points and 4th in the A-10 in scoring at 16.2 ppg. Brothers is 3rd in the A-10 and 23rd in the nation in three-pointers made per game (2.95) and is 3rd in the A-10 in 26th in the nation in free throw pct (888.).
• The Spiders are 3rd in A-10 wins over the last 6 years (54), behind only Xavier and Temple.
• Richmond is 2nd in the A-10 and is 26th in the nation in three-point percentage (.384). The Spiders are 1st in the A-10 and 20th in the country in three-pointers made per game (8.5).
