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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer 11:32 PM Saturday, January 28, 2012

You heard him before you saw him.

As the door to the coaches lounge in the Donoher Center opened, you heard the loud disgust, disappointment, the not-so-delicate language.

Archie Miller — followed by his University of Dayton basketball assistant coaches — was marching toward the UD dressing room to meet with his team after its stunning 86-81 loss to Rhode Island Saturday night at UD Arena.

Either he was working himself up to lambast his troops — or maybe just trying to let off some steam after the debacle he had just seen — but either way the UD coach was agitated by one of his team’s poorest efforts.

“This is #%&#&%# ridiculous,” Miller groused just before walking inside, “Just ridiculous.”

He’ll get no arguments from anyone who saw this one.

This loss is more disheartening than the 29-point flop to Buffalo in late November for a couple of reasons:

• Rhode Island came into this game having won just three of 21 games this season.

• The Rams had lost six in a row and were without two of their starters.

• Their leading scorer got kicked off the team last month and then junior guard Andre Malone was ruled ineligible before the game because of an academic issue.

The Flyers, meanwhile, had made so many people believers in them this season with their unexpected victories over a string of BCS schools, as well as Atlantic 10 stalwarts Saint Louis, Temple and Xavier.

Saturday night, though, everyone witnessed a reality no one wanted to see.

And I’m not talking about that hefty, red-headed kid in the second row of the Red Scare student section who lifts his T-shirt over his head and jumps up and down with enough things bouncing this way and that that anyone wants to turn away.

It’s meant to distract opposing free-throw shooters and sometimes it may work.

But not Saturday night.

Nothing stopped the Rams — especially the UD defense.

That was the real ugliness of the night.

The Flyers couldn’t make a defensive stop when they needed to. They relied — to their detriment — on the 3-point shot and didn’t pound the ball inside. That led to one glaringly disproportionate stat. They attempted 29 three-point shots, but shot only 10 free throws. Too much long-range bombing, not enough going up with the ball inside and getting hacked.

“When you’ve got to depend so much on having each one of your shots go in — because you can’t stop them at the other end and every shot of theirs goes in — it’s a sick feeling in the stomach,” Miller said.

“I always said we’re a team built a certain way. The last two games we took something like 27 and 29 three-point shots. That’s too many. Kav (center Matt Kavanaugh) did get some touches in the first and second half, but not many. And he missed two chippies he usually makes in the second half. ... But we’re having a real hard time pounding it inside.”

The deficiencies of this team showed themselves Saturday. The Flyers lack size inside, they lack depth and for once that all came back to haunt them.

They need everybody contributing almost beyond their means — which has happened several times this year — to play like the 14-6 team that came into the game.

No one is struggling more than senior guard Paul Williams, who is 1-for-15 from the floor in his last two games — both UD losses.

“He’s not playing well and he needs to work through it,” Miller said. “Players work through times like this. I’ve been there. That’s what I had to do. What everybody has to do. Sometimes it takes six games or seven games. You’ve just got to work at it every game.

“Right now Paul’s stuck in a rut. We’ve got to get him out of it. He’s got to get himself out of it and one way is by playing defense. That’s something you can control. Playing good defense makes up for a lot of things that aren’t going well.”

Saturday night the team couldn’t defend when it had to and especially couldn’t stop Rams sophomore guard Billy Baron, who hit one clutch shot after another down the stretch and finished with a game-high 25 points.

The Flyers couldn’t score inside, made some costly turnovers in the final minutes and couldn’t rebound in the second half like they did in the first 20 minutes.

“Tough night,” Miller said after his postgame radio session from the middle of the UD Arena floor. “That was pretty ugly.”

He wasn’t talking about the bare-bellied kid in the second row — he was long gone.

But the disturbing things revealed on the floor this night will submarine more games if not corrected quickly.

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