by Nick Faria<\/p>\n
DRADDY GYMNASIUM \u2014 If there has been one constant for the Manhattan University women\u2019s basketball program over the last few years, it\u2019s that they know what it takes to find success.<\/p>\n
The Jaspers entered the 2025-26 season with winning records in four of the last five years. They hoped a home contest against the University of Rhode Island Rams would serve as a good litmus test for the young program.<\/p>\n
Instead, they got a reminder of how far they still must go.<\/p>\n
The undersized Jaspers were blitzed on opening night in a 56-38 loss to the Rams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Rhode Island is going to win a lot of games this year,\u201d head coach Heather Vulin told the Press. \u201cI think [the loss] gave us a lot of things we need to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both teams got off to slow starts. The Jaspers and Rams missed a combined 15 shots before the game\u2019s first basket.<\/p>\n
By the first media timeout, Manhattan trailed just 3-0. But as the first quarter wore on, a barrage of three-point jumpers extended Rhode Island\u2019s lead. The Jaspers shot just 2-for-15 from the field in the opening quarter and trailed 15-6 after one.<\/p>\n
Rhode Island stretched its lead to 32-12 at the half, behind nine points from sophomore forward Palmire Mbu. The Rams\u2019 size and length frustrated the young Jaspers on both ends of the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel like they punched us in the face first,\u201d Vulin said. \u201cI said the biggest thing at halftime is I didn\u2019t feel we were playing with enough confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the coach\u2019s halftime speech, the Jaspers made key adjustments that helped them climb back into the game. Manhattan shifted its defense into a 2-3 zone, which disrupted the Rams\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n
It was a move Vulin said was intended to limit Rhode Island\u2019s size advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt like we were letting them attack us too much off the dribble,\u201d she said. \u201cWe thought the zone would slow it down\u2026 compacting them a little bit would help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The results were immediate. The Jaspers opened the third quarter on an 8-0 run and held the Rams scoreless for the first four minutes. Manhattan outscored Rhode Island 17-4 in the quarter, cutting the deficit to as low as nine.<\/p>\n
But a late run from the Rams proved too much, and the Jaspers left the court with an 18-point loss to open the season.<\/p>\n
Now 0-1, Manhattan will return to the court Nov. 7 for a road matchup against the University of Minnesota, a Big Ten program. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Game Notes<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Jaspers shot just 22.9 percent from the field Monday. Last season, their lowest shooting percentage was 23, recorded on Feb. 22 against Quinnipiac University. The team shot under 20 percent in the first half.<\/p>\n
\u2022 It took All-MAAC First-Team guard Brianna Davis until the two-minute mark of the second quarter to score her first points, but she surged in the third quarter and finished with a game-high 18 points on 5-for-12 shooting.<\/p>\n
\u2022 This marks the second consecutive season opener the Jaspers have lost. Last year, they fell to Rutgers University, 84-79.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Manhattan entered the season with a young roster, including 10 newcomers. Those newcomers struggled off the bench \u2014 Rhode Island\u2019s reserves outscored Manhattan\u2019s by a 22-6 margin.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tManhattan University,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t women\u2019s basketball,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Jaspers,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Rhode Island Rams,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Heather Vulin,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Brianna Davis,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t college basketball\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Nick Faria DRADDY GYMNASIUM \u2014 If there has been one constant for the Manhattan University women\u2019s basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[19365,3361,19364,14998,75,84,83,19361,9,24,63,19363,19362],"class_list":["post-32118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-brianna-davis","tag-college-basketball","tag-heather-vulin","tag-jaspers","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-manhattan-university","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-rhode-island-rams","tag-womens-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}