Men's College Basketball
Rider University 84, Marist College 62
POUGHKEEPSIE, NY-In the 1880s Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. In the 1960s Jerry Lewis was the nerdy Nutty Professor who turned into suave Buddy Love. In the 1990s Eddie Murphy was the grossly overweight Professor Sherman Klump who turned into the slim but obnoxious Buddy Love. Stevenson, Lewis and Murphy could relate to the Rider basketball team.
One version of the Bronc basketball team defeated 18th ranked Mississippi State, defeated Saint Joseph's, beat Lehigh by 15 points, won at UMBC by 12 points and played Kentucky tough. The other version gave up 43 second half points to Virginia, didn't score a point in overtime at Rutgers, gave up 46 points in a half at Loyola and lost at home by 20.
Fortunately, the real Broncs were on display Monday night in Poughkeepsie as Rider won a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game at Marist by 22 points. "It felt good because we were playing Rider basketball," said Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey. "Overall we just played really good basketball almost throughout. We were shooting high-percentage shots and the guys got into a good rhythm."
For Rider (10-8, 3-3 MAAC) senior Ryan Thompson (Mt. Laurel, N.J./Lenape) scored a game-high 21 points in 24 minutes of action and junior Jhamar Youngblood (Elizabeth, N.J./St. Patrick's) scored 17 points in 20 minutes off the bench.
"This is the team that I expected to be playing for this year," said Youngblood, who transferred to Rider after two stellar seasons at Monmouth, where he compiled 697 points. "This is what I envisioned. It was fun out there today. When you are having fun everything seems that much better."
"Jhamar played the way we expected him to play," Dempsey said. "He's a good player. He hasn't had a great year to date but none of us have, yet. Tonight he got into a nice rhythm and he was probably the big difference."
Rider got 37 points off the bench. "We've had nights where we didn't get five or six points off the bench," Dempsey said. "Jhamar was the leader of that group off the bench tonight."
"We know we can turn this season around," Thompson said. "We just need to keep playing hard. The shots were falling for us tonight. Everybody was playing together, passing the ball." Rider had 18 assists. "We were getting a lot of open shots," Thompson said.
Last year Rider was 10-8 before winning nine of the next 12.
"I think we took a step in the right direction tonight," Dempsey said.
Rider out-scored Marist 17-3 to start the second half, seven points by Thompson, to take a 66-31 lead with 14 minutes left to play.
Rider led 82-50 before Devin Price made three consecutive three-pointers to cut the lead to 82-59 with 2:30 left to play. Price, Rob Johnson and Candon Rusin each scored 11 points for Marist (1-15, 1-5 MAAC), who began the season 0-11 but began 2010 with a win over Manhattan January 2
Holding an 18-15 lead, Rider went on a 19-4 run, nine points by Youngblood, to take a 37-19 lead with 7:00 left to play in the first half. Rider led 49-28 at half time as nine different Broncs scored in the first 20 minutes and Rider shot 58 percent from the field (19-33). "I think we got off to a good start," Dempsey said. "We got out in transition and controlled the tempo of the game."
Junior Mike Ringgold (Philadelphia, Pa./Roman Catholic) added 11 points and nine rebounds, junior Justin Robinson (London, England/Blair Academy) added eight points and six assists and junior Patrick Mansell (Cheltenham, Pa./Cheltenham) made three three-pointers and finished with 11 points in 17 minutes off the bench. "Pat made some big threes for us," Dempsey said.
The Broncs were playing without sophomore Novar Gadson (Philadelphia, Pa./John Bartram), who sprained his ankle in the Iona game Saturday. Gadson has more defensive rebounds (104) than anyone in the MAAC. "Novar is as tough as they come," Dempsey said, "so he's going to try to get out there as soon as he can. But if he is not ready we won't use him. There is still a lot of season left."
Rider and Marist have now met 42 times since the series began in 1980-81, with each team winning 21. Rider has won the last six meetings and 12 of the last 18. Rider and Marist were Northeast Conference rivals and both came to the MAAC in 1997-98.
Rider returns home to host Saint Peter's Friday. Let's hope the real Rider team is in the Broncs' Zoo.
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