La Salle rallies in second half but falls to Rhode Island

As the regular season winds down, coaches are looking for anything to build momentum headed into their conference tournaments.

This probably explains why La Salle coach John Giannini - after seeing his team shoot dismally from the free-throw line (13 for 25); turn the ball over 10 times in the first half; and ultimately fall to Rhode Island, 59-56, at Tom Gola Arena - spoke optimistically about what's left for his team.

"We're extremely disappointed with a loss," Giannini said after the Explorers (15-14, 7-9 Atlantic Ten) lost their third game in a row. "Obviously, we missed free throws, and we turned it over. But we were a shot or two away from being able to win it. For as highly disappointed as I am, I feel like our second half was really something to build on. If we don't dig ourselves into a hole the way we did today and can play the way we did in the second half, we can win some games over the next two weeks."

The Explorers have two games remaining in the regular season before the A-10 tournament. On Wednesday, they face rival St. Joseph's at Hagan Arena. They close out the season next Saturday at Dayton, which beat No. 22 Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday and is tied for first in the A-10 with Rhode Island (20-7, 12-4) and Davidson.

Down by 15 points early in the second half, La Salle which got a season-high 23 points and eight rebounds out of power forward Jerrell Wright, was better in all aspects of its game in the final 20 minutes, when it outscored Rhode Island 32-23. The Explorers turned the ball over just twice, and after allowing the Rams to shoot 51.7 percent from the field in the first half, they limited them to just 8-of-23 shooting in the second half.

They put themselves in position to win the game late, closing to within 56-54 with 3 minutes, 34 seconds to play. But they missed some key three-pointers and free throws.

While the poor free-throw shooting hurt, Rhode Island did an excellent defensive job on La Salle's leading scorer, Jordan Price. Averaging 17.4 points a game, Price, hampered by foul problems, scored just four points on 1-for-8 shooting.