February 18, 2009 by Chris Maza | A10CollegeHoops

AMHERST, Mass. – The UMass student section’s “blackout” couldn’t stop Keith Cothran from shooting lights out.

As the UMass fans donned all black in an attempt to throw the Rhode Island Rams off their game, Cothran found his with a career high in points and URI came back from a 12-point deficit to beat the Minutemen, 71-59, at the Mullins Center Wednesday night.

“He’s very aggressive and he attacks the bucket,” Rams head coach Jim Baron. “He’s a kid who just plays hard. He creates problems because he’s a big guard.”

Cothran came off the bench to score 26 points on 11-of-17 shooting.

Keith Cothran – Rhode Island Rams (G)

“I just knew I wanted to go out there and be aggressive,” Cothran said. “I watched film on them and they like to scramble (on defense), so I just wanted to hit the open shots and drive to the basket.”

It was an incredibly big effort on a night when usual team leaders Kahiem Seawright and Jimmy Baron disappeared. Baron, who came in averaging 16.6 points per game, was a non-factor throughout, scoring six points on 1-of-7 shooting. His lone field goal came in the final minutes of the first half. Seawright scored just four points.

Cothran and the rest of the Rams bench came through, however, combining for 43 points.

“It was tremendous. I think our younger guys stepped up,” Jim Baron said. “We had a lot of guys stepped up and in this league, you can’t do it with one or two guys. You need to have a number of guys being able to step up and our guys really showed it.”

UMass jumped out to a lead right off the bat with a pair of three points to start the game and didn’t give up the lead for the rest of the half. The Minutemen extended the lead to 12, the largest of the game, with a floater in the lane by Ricky Harris and a put back by Tyrell Lynch, putting the score at 31-19.

But the Rams charged back into it with a 9-0 run to end the half and close within three points at 31-28 going into the half.

Rhode Island finally took its first lead in the second half on Cothran’s three-pointer, but UMass posted an 8-0 run to jump back out front, 47-41.

The Rams finally took the lead for good with 2:28 remaining when Seawright hit two free throws to give Rhode Island a 59-57 lead. Those free throws sparked a 12-2 run to end the game.

“It’s getting a little redundant. We play really great basketball for 36 minutes and then almost figure out a way yourself to lose,” UMass head coach Derek Kellogg said.

After being held to 29 percent shooting in the first half, Rhode Island rebounded and shot at a 60 percent clip to outscore UMass, 43-28, in the second half. Meanwhile, UMass shot consistently poorly, hitting just 37 percent of its attempts.

 The Minutemen got 15 points apiece from Harris and Chris Lowe. Lowe also dished five assists, leaving him one short of becoming UMass’ career leader. Tony Gaffney added 11 points and blocked six shots, but no one took charge for the Minutemen down the stretch.

“Until someone steps up and says, ‘I’m going to take this game over, I’m going to be tough, I’m not letting us lose,’ we’re going to continue to throw games away at the end and our season will end before we know it,” said Gaffney.

It was UMass’ second straight loss and sixth in its last eight games. At 9-15 and 4-7 in the Atlantic 10, the Minutemen drop into a tie with St. Bonaventure with one of the conference’s worst records.

The win was a huge boost for the Rams, who leapfrogged St. Joseph’ to take over 4th place in the standings with an 8-4 conference mark. They are 19-8 overall on the season.