Kevin McNamara: URI’s ‘Fatts’ is making a name for himself

Hide captionSOUTH KINGSTOWN — First let’s take care of the name.

Daron Russell is known as Fatts for what can only be called an incongruous reason. A little guy who weighs 165 pounds on a good day entered the world a bit chubby. His mother, Terri Sutton, instantly slapped a nickname on her baby.

“As soon as I came out I was Fatts,” Russell said.

So who had some little guy named Fatts as the key performer in the latest Providence College-University of Rhode Island basketball passion play?

Probably no one.

Yet instead the key player, the best player, was a little guy from the streets of Philadelphia who lit the fuse that nearly blew the top off the Ryan Center in the middle of the first half.…