Rider's Jon Thompson tries to drive past Princeton's Denton Koon/ Photo by JOHN BLAINE

PRINCETON — Kevin Baggett isn’t making any excuses. Neither is Anthony Myles.

Simply put, Rider wasn’t anywhere near good enough to beat Princeton Thursday night at Jadwin Gym.

“They made us look like a bad team today,” said Baggett after the Broncs turned in a woeful performance in a 62-45 loss.

Rider’s 45 points was a season low. It also scored 46 in a loss to Stony Brook on Nov. 13.

The Broncs, coming off an 11-day layoff, struggled from the field, connecting on just 36.4 percent of their shots (16 of 44, 3 of 10 from behind the arc).

“If anything, I thought it helped us out,” said junior guard Anthony Myles, who finished with a team-high 18 points. “We had more than enough time to prepare for this game. It’s kind of disappointing when we don’t execute the things we rehearsed.”

The problem right now: Myles pointed it out in the locker room after the game.

 

Inconsistency.

“We’re struggling to find out what our identity is,” Baggett said. “That’s pretty much why we’re 6-6. We’ve been inconsistent. Aside from this game, we’ve been in every game and had an opportunity to win. We’ve gone backward the last two games.”

In a 13-point loss to Fairfield, Rider turned it over 30 times. Thursday night, it couldn’t generate any points.

So what gives with the offensive woes?

Too much one-on-one?

“No question,” Baggett said.

Said Myles: “We made it difficult on ourselves. We were stagnant on offense and we have that problem a lot. We have to get out of that.”

Once again, the Broncs got very little from Nurideen Lindsey. The junior guard — he missed the last two days of practice with strep throat — finished with four points on 2 of 9 shooting.

Danny Stewart was invisible against the Tigers’ big front line, getting shut out.

“We have to execute the principles we practice,” Myles said. “We have to do the things coach tells us to do. Sometimes we try to go off and do our own thing and that’s what gets us in trouble.”

The defense wasn’t good enough either.

Princeton outscored Rider in the paint, 44-22, and got nine second-chance points to the Broncs’ three.

“They got easy layups, back door layups — really anything they wanted for the most part,” Baggett said. “They made us struggle to score and everything that we shot or drove to the basket was contested and everything they shot was uncontested.”

The Broncs aren’t back in action until Dec. 28 when they travel to Rutgers.

Time to straighten things out?

“We’re just not good right now,” said Baggett, hinting that changes could be coming as he looks for any kind of spark for his sputtering squad.

NOTES: Princeton’s Ian Hummer passed Geoff Petrie for eighth place on the school’s all-time scoring list. Petrie had 1,321 points. … Will Barrett left the game in the second half after banging his right thigh. He did not return, but coach Mitch Henderson said he expects him to be OK. … Rider freshman Myles Melville, who spent time at the Hun School, scored his first career points.