It’s roughly a month until the 2024-25 academic year begins and the University of Rhode Island is still filling men’s basketball scholarships. 

The Rams received a commitment on Tuesday afternoon from 2025 point guard Damone King. He’s a Louisville native who will bypass a planned prep year at Hargrave Military Academy and enroll immediately at URI this fall. 

King plans to redshirt and will debut alongside fellow 2025 backcourt commit Barrett Loer. They’ll serve as reinforcements at the outset of the 2025-26 season with the Rams set to lose Albany transfer Sebastian Thomas, Jaden House and, pending a possible medical redshirt, East Carolina transfer Quentin Diboundje. 

More: Rhode Island basketball lands 6-4 guard from Mass. to fill void in backcourt. Who is he?

King is a Louisville native who took an official visit to campus last week. The 6-foot-3 prospect attended a private practice at the Ryan Center organized for the school’s name, image and likeness donors. King announced he would forego his admission to Hargrave on social media and pledged to URI on his Instagram account a couple of days later. 

King claimed recent offers from the likes of Atlantic 10-rival Saint Louis, Youngstown State, Charlotte, North Alabama and Stetson. He earned earlier offers in his recruiting process from Illinois State, Northern Kentucky, Ohio and more. King could have seen his stock rise by reclassifying and following through on a prep year — Louisville, BYU, Murray State and Western Kentucky had all been in contact at some point. 

King played his final high school season at DeSales, an all-boys power in his native city. The Colts finished 24-10 overall, captured a 22nd District title and reached the Region 6 playoffs. King posted a team-high 20.0 points per game, ranked second at 5.6 rebounds and compiled an elite shooting line — 50.6% from the field, 40.9% from 3-point range and 87.1% from the foul line. 

King played his grassroots basketball on the Adidas circuit with Wildcat Select. He returned in July after a late-season injury with the Colts and impressed at the organization’s showcase event in South Carolina. King hit for double figures in each of his five games, averaging 12.0 points on 21-for-46 shooting. 

King and Loer were among several backcourt targets prioritized by URI through the July live evaluation periods. Arness Lawson, Gabe Tanner, Jalen Harper, KJ Cochran, Adriel Nyorha and Kai Shinholster were among the other guards who claimed offers from the Rams after July 1. URI could now turn its attention to the frontcourt, with 2025 forwards like Javon Perry, James Turner, JJ Kelly, Abdou Yadd — King’s grassroots teammate — and Spencer Ahrens among the new names connected with the program. 

The Rams are currently on a week-long trip to the Bahamas and opened with a Monday night win over Calgary. URI breezed, 93-66, at Baha Mar, putting five players in double figures. Western Michigan transfer Javonte Brown hit for 16 points and nine rebounds while St. John’s transfer Drissa Traore collected 15 points and nine boards.  

bkoch@providencejournal.com

On X: @BillKoch25 

BRISTOL, Conn. — North Kingstown/Wickford Little League entered the Metro Regional baseball tournament in Bristol, Connecticut, over the weekend hoping to find a way to advance to the Little League World Series.

However, the Rhode Island representatives soon found out the road to Williamsport, Pa., is hard to get through. After facing tough competition and perhaps even tougher weather conditions, Rhode Island was eliminated from the tournament after falling to Connecticut, 13-2, on Monday night. The loss to Connecticut came after Rhode Island fell in the opening round, 17-7, to New York.

More: Rhode Island Little League champs drop opener to New York in regional tournament

Despite the team’s quick exit from the Metro tournament, Rhode Island showed some resilience late in the ball game. After allowing Connecticut to take a 7-0 lead, fueled by Alexander Mitchell’s first two at-bats, Rhode Island managed to load the bases at the bottom of the fourth inning with no outs.

The impressive batting eventually led to two runs for NK/W, cutting the lead to a more manageable five-run deficit. However, things got out of hand in the fifth inning as Connecticut plated six more runs, effectively ending the game by the run rule.

Rhode Island manager Justin Amaral declined to comment.

Connecticut manager Lorenzo Biscotto said, after losing their first game, 8-4, to New Jersey, the message heading into the Rhode Island game was that it comes down to one game at a time. He said he told his team to not look any further ahead than Monday night.

“We’re excited to have finally got this win. We were knocking on the door last year, but we didn;t get any wins last year when we played New Jersey and Rhode Island,” Biscotto said. “Tonight we were able to break through for East Lyme. It’s a big relief.”

Biscotto said his team used its experience and focused on the little things to come out on the winning side. He said his players showed a level of fight of their own.

“When we get our back against the wall, we try to learn as best we can from it,” he said. “That was a tough game the other night. That was a 6½-hour game and it tested us in every level mentally, physically, emotionally and we learned a lot of it.”

From a players standpoint, Mitchell faced Rhode Island hoping to rebound from a tough team batting performance in their first game. Mitchell specifically, took advantage of the Rhode Island pitching, connecting for a two-run triple in the top of the second inning to put the first runs on the board and then notching a two-run double in the fourth.

“I was really excited when I got that really big hit; that was really huge and put our team in the lead,” Mitchell said. “We had a tough game. We lost, 8-4, and they just punched us in the face. We didn’t have our A game, but we were confident.”

Biscotto attributed Mitchell’s and the team’s success to their attention to detail and working the counts well. As Connecticut progresses to the Metro Regional semifinals they will have to continue to hit well against an impressive New York team. Connecticut will face New York on Wednesday at 5 p.m. for a chance to reach the regional championship on Friday.

For four decades, painted wooden signs have hung in Camp Medicine Bow’s dining hall, highlighting campsite names. There’s Minnikesu, Weemat and Wuttah, just to name a few … and this summer, Troop 399 of North Babylon, N.Y., added a new one.

The troop created all the campsite signs, each with the campsite name and its translated meaning from the Narragansett Native American language. For example, Wuttah means “heart.” The newest sign, decorated with books and birds, is emblazoned with the words “Red Wing,” and its meaning is “Storyteller,” the name for the Narragansett princess who published the Narragansett Dawn tribal newspaper.

The signs have lined the dining hall’s interior (and exterior for a brief period) for years, save for the offseason between 2005 and 2006 when the troop took them home to repaint them.

Camp Medicine Bow is one of three camps within Camp Yawgoog, which has more than 100 years of tradition welcoming Scouts to the beautiful wilderness on the southwestern side of Rhode Island.

Share your summer camp highlights

Scouts from across the country have been having amazing times at Scouting America’s council camps this summer. Troop 399’s addition to their camp’s collection was just one of many memories Scouts are creating.

If you’d like to share some of your Scouts’ memories, let us know and your unit might be featured in a future story. You can also email us at onscouting@scouting.org.

You can also contact Scout Life magazine to share your unit’s future outings, service projects or how your Scouts are making a difference in their communities.

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