KINGSTON, R.I. — On Saturday, UMass had to wait for a referees ruling after the final buzzer before it officially lost the game to St. Bonaventure. On Thursday the suspense didn’t last nearly that long.

A brutal start ballooned into a brutal half and eventually a lopsided final score as the Minutemen fell 68-50 to Rhode Island at the Ryan Center.

UMass (12-17, 5-12 Atlantic 10) won’t have time to lick its wounds. The Minutemen are back in action Saturday at 8 p.m. against La Salle. The game is UMass’ senior day and regular season finale.

Trailing by 22 at halftime, UMass sliced the lead to 10 with 11 minutes, 21 seconds left quieting the crowd of 5,113 briefly. But the enormous deficit forced the Minutemen to gamble defensively. It worked at first producing turnovers, but eventually it led to easy baskets for Rhode Island, who pulled away.

Both teams came out flinging rocks to start the game as they combined to miss the first nine shots, including many that weren’t close. Rhode Island eventually found the range, scoring the first 11 points of the game putting the Minutemen on their heels throughout.

UMass didn’t score until 8:09 into the game when Rashaan Holloway posted up inside for a layup that made it 11-2.

Before that the Minutemen were 0-for-9 with two turnovers. 

A late 3-pointer by Jabarie Hinds spared UMass the ignominy of a single-digit half but the Minutemen were 5-for-26 from the floor, including 1-for-10 from 3-point range and tr

Even layups were no guarantee as Rhode Island blocked four of them in before intermission and eight in the game.

“What really hurt us is I thought we had six or seven fast break layups that ended up being blocks or we didn’t convert,” Kellogg said. “We’re not good enough not to convert fastbreak situations. That’s where we need to do some things well.”

The Minutemen finished 15-for-52 from the field with 13 turnovers.

Rashaan Holloway was a rare highlight for UMass. The freshman big man followed his strong play in Saturday’s loss to St. Bonaventure with a team-high 11 points to go with four rebounds.

Kuran Iverson led URI (17-13, 9-8 A-10) with 13 points and 12 rebounds, while Jared Terrell had 15 points.