NEW YORK (AP) Jhamir Brickus had 18 points in La Salle's 73-56 victory against Rhode Island on Tuesday night in the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship.

With the win, the 11th-seeded Explorers claim a second-round bid against No. 6 overall Duquesne, tip set for Wednesday evening at 7:30 p.m.

"It's a new season, it's 0-0," Brickus said. "We were going to leave it all out there and go hard. So we all stuck together today, and we went and left everything out there, and we came up with the win."

Brickus was 7-of-10 shooting and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line for the Explorers (14-18). Daeshon Shepherd added 15 points while finishing 7-of-10 from the floor, and also had 11 rebounds. Khalil Brantley recorded 11 points.

The Rams (9-22) were led in scoring by Malik Martin, who finished with 19 points, seven rebounds and two blocks.

"[La Salle] physically dominated us for 40 minutes," Rhode Island head coach Archie Miller said. "The rebounding total in itself would have been hard for us to withstand. But our inability to really guard the ball, keep in front. We just had a hard time from the opening jump. They were the aggressor, and I thought they were more prepared. That's on me."

Ishmael Leggett added 11 points and six rebounds for Rhode Island. In addition, Sebastian Thomas finished with nine points and four assists.

La Salle led 39-24 at the break.

---

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.