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Rider 72, Saint Peter's 66
JERSEY CITY – Playing on the road against a young but vastly improved team, Rider delivered the kind of performance it had been unable to come up with earlier this season.
The Broncs, needing a win to avoid their third loss in four games, were impressive Monday night from the middle of the first half on. Getting contributions from both likely and unlikely sources, they beat Saint Peter’s 72-66, giving them some much-needed margin for error in their final two conference games.
Ryan Thompson, named the MAAC Player of the Week earlier in the day, was quiet in the first half but dominant in the second. Scoring on a mixture of layups and mid-range floaters, he scored 18 of his 21 points after the break, helping bring Rider (15-13 overall, 8-8 MAAC) back to .500 in the MAAC.
“Overall, a good character win for our team and our program,” coach Tommy Dempsey said. “We’ve been kicked around this year at times and it feels like every time we get going we get knocked down a peg, but we find a way to dig down and keep the season alive.”
Mike Ringgold played his best offensive game in weeks. Nearly unstoppable in the low post, he had 16 points in a game-high 38 minutes. Justin Robinson scored 11 points and had a career-high-tying eight assists and Pat Mansell -- often relegated to the bench -- chipped in with eight points. Jeron Belin scored 15 points and Ryan Bacon added 13 for the Peacocks (14-11, 9-6).
Dempsey ventured away from his regular substitution pattern in the first half, starting Brandon Penn in place of Novar Gadson and playing freshman Dere Nd-Ezuma for a season-high eight minutes.
Nd-Ezuma, averaging 2.7 minutes per game, scored on a turnaround in the low post and had two rebounds –a rare contribution for a player typically only used in garbage time.
Rider needs to win at least one of its final two MAAC games to ensure a top six finish in the MAAC, but the Broncs showed last night they remain dangerous – a team capable of winning games against quality opponents.
“We’re tested,” Dempsey said. “We’ve won in the (MAAC) tournament. There are some other teams that still have to prove that when the bright lights come on they can go and get wins in that tournament. This team has done that. So my biggest job right now is to keep our momentum pushing forward, keep playing good basketball. … We’re hitting our stride, and that was good basketball we played tonight.”
The Broncs were as efficient on offense as they’ve been in quite some time. Rider shot 58 percent for the game and a sizzling 71 percent in the second half. The Broncs finished with two offensive rebounds – a crippling stat in most cases, but one that Monday night was merely a product of only 21 missed baskets.
“I thought we really controlled the game, from start to finish in a lot of ways,” Dempsey said. “We trailed a time or two, but it didn’t seem like by much.”
posted by Kyle Franko at
9:58 PM
9 Comments:
Any reason why Gadson played limited minutes.
"to avoid a three game losing streak"???
yes they will probably lose to siena but dont count your chickens before they hatch
Anon,
Thanks for the heads up. That's my mistake and will be corrected. Meant to write that they needed to avoid losing three out of four.
Marko,
I didn't specifically ask about Gadson after the game, but his ankle isn't close to 100 percent and Dempsey likely felt he needed to rest it a bit more. Also, SPC played a lot of zone, making Pat Mansell a better option because of his outside shooting.
At what point did you plan on mentioning that SPC was playing without their head coach?
The last 2 game stories....minimal discussion of RT getting booted and zero discussion of Dunne missing the game.
Wake up doody.
Maybe you should go back to the theme of Rider's season being a disappointment.....wait, they're playing better and can make a run in Albany....sorry, I must have missed that since you proclaimed them dead a month ago.
Anon,
As you know, the game stories are written for a Trenton paper and from a Rider standpoint.
Dunne missing the game is extremely low on a list of things that matter to Rider. Probably wouldn't make the top 10 if I made a list. Should I have worked it in there somewhere?
Yeah, I probably should have. But let's not act like it was the deciding factor in the game.
As for Rider being dead, find me the post I wrote when I said they were "dead." I wrote that their regular season was a disappointment -- a reality that no one in the program would deny.
They had six MAAC losses last year, returned almost their entire roster, and already have eight MAAC losses this year. Do you think that's the kind of regular season they wanted to have?
Dunne not being there made a huge impact. The team didn't make one defensive adjustment. Thompson made easy baskets on the same play over and over. Not to mention that momentum-killing SPC timeout.
Why exactly did he miss the game?
xyz,
He missed the game because he had the flu. The impression that I got was that he'd be back for tonight's game at Loyola, though I'm not certain that will be the case.
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