Men's College Basketball
University of Virginia 79, Rider University 46
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA-The Broncs saw their two-game winning streak snapped in the first round of the Cancun Challenge Thursday night, losing to the University of Virginia. "We just didn't play well," said Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey. "We couldn't guard them."
Holding a 36-22 lead at halftime, Virginia (2-1) out-scored Rider 14-3 to start the second half, seven points by Sammy Zeglinski, to take a 50-25 lead with 15 minutes left to play. Zeglinski, a 2007 graduate of Penn Charter in Philadelphia, finished with 12 points.
"We took too many gambles on defense trying to catch up and they made us pay," Dempsey said. "Virginia played a great basketball game, combined with the fact that we played lousy. The results speak for themselves. We didn't give them much of a fight, which was disappointing."
Sophomore Brandon Penn (Philadelphia, Pa./Paul Robeson) led the Broncs with a career-high 10 points and a career-high seven rebounds in 21 minutes of action off of the bench. "Brandon tried to give us a lift," Dempsey said.
Senior Ryan Thompson (Mt. Laurel, N.J./Lenape) got into early foul trouble, committing two personals in the first 3:11 and finished with just nine points in 30 minutes of action. "Our starting backcourt was on the bench just a few minutes into the game," Dempsey said.
"We just didn't knock the shots down tonight," said Thompson, who was three for seven from the field and two for six from the foul line. "The last two games we were making everything. Tonight it didn't go in. It was just a bad day for us."
Trailing 25-13, Rider (2-1) went on a 7-0 run, three points by junior Justin Robinson (London, England/Blair Academy), to cut the lead to 25-20 with 6:06 left to play in the first half, but that was as close as the Broncs could get after taking a 2-0 lead on a dunk by sophomore Jermaine Jackson (Reading, Pa./Reading), his only points of the game.
Robinson finished with five points, two assists and a pair of rebounds.
Mike Scott, a 6-8 junior forward, scored six straight points to give the Cavaliers a 31-20 lead and Virginia led 36-22 at the half on 13 first half points from Scott. "Scott played so well in the first half and then they made us pay for doubling him," Dempsey said.
Scott finished with a game-high 17 points. "They went inside to Scott early and when we doubled him they spread the floor and hit some threes," Dempsey said.
Virginia shot 52 percent from the field, including seven of 16 three-pointers. "They had it clicking tonight," Dempsey said. "They got into a good rhythm and shot the ball well."
Rider made 26 of 45 three-pointers in its first two games but made just seven of 23 from beyond the arc on Thursday, including two of 10 in the first half. "We were chasing them all night and never got into a good flow," Dempsey said. "We missed a lot of shots that we've been making. When you play behind sometimes you play too fast and rush your shots."
Junior Mike Ringgold (Philadelphia, Pa./Roman Catholic) scored eight points, all in the first half. "We missed shots, we didn't rebound well and we didn't play great defense," Ringgold said.
Sophomore Novar Gadson (Philadelphia, Pa./John Bartram) came into the game averaging 20 points per game but managed just three points on Thursday, along with four rebounds in 17 minutes of action. "They did a good job of keeping us out of the lane," Dempsey said. "We like to drive the ball, attack the paint and they did a good job of staying in front of us, switching a lot of screens, which disrupted us a bit."
Sophomore guard Sylven Landesberg entered the game averaging 18.5 ppg and finished with 10. "He's a really good player but tonight they didn't need him to be great," Dempsey said. "So many guys had a good rhythm going."
Virginia junior guard Mustapha Farrakhan, the grandson of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, compiled eight points in 22 minutes of action.
There were 8,061 fans in the three-year old, $130 million John Paul Jones Arena, which seats 14,593.
Rider now travels to Lexington, KY to face the fourth ranked Wildcats Saturday afternoon. "We came down here expecting to win and we're going to Kentucky with the same attitude," Thompson said. "We had a bad game and now we have to turn it around. Every team has its ups and downs. When our offense is clicking we can beat anybody, but when it is not, we need to play great defense, and tonight we didn't."
"We have to go into Lexington thinking we can win,' Ringgold said. "If we don't the same thing could happen that happened tonight. We go into every game thinking we can win. We went to Mississippi State thinking we could win and we did."
"This will bring us back to earth and get us more focused for the task at hand, Kentucky," Dempsey said.
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