Men's College Basketball
Canisius College 74, Rider University 58
BUFFALO, NY-The Broncs lost a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game at Canisius Friday night. "I'm searching for answers right now," said Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey. "I'm disappointed. I'm discouraged. We're just trying to find our way right now, but it's not happening."
Rider (10-11, 3-6 MAAC) has now lost three in a row for the first time since February of 2008 and has now lost six of its last eight games. "To be perfectly honest, the teams that we are playing are better than us right now," Dempsey said. "They look better than us."
Canisius (10-10, 5-4 MAAC) had just four conference wins all of last year. Canisius senior guard Frank Turner from Atlantic City led all scorers with 21 points while junior guard Julius Coles added 20 points.
For Rider, junior Justin Robinson (London, England/Blair Academy) scored 19 points. Robinson scored 16 in the first half.
Also for Rider senior Ryan Thompson (Mt. Laurel, N.J./Lenape) added 10 points, five rebounds and six assists and junior Jhamar Youngblood (Elizabeth, N.J./St. Patrick's) added nine points and a team-high seven rebounds. Junior Mike Ringgold (Philadelphia, Pa./Roman Catholic) added seven points and six rebounds.
Holding a 56-49 lead, Canisius out-scored Rider 13-3, five points by Elton Frazier, to take a 69-52 lead with 2:56 left to play. Canisius led 39-38 at halftime but out-scored Rider 10-3 to start the second half, four points each by Coles and Frazier, to take a 49-41 lead with 17:04 left to play.
Trailing 35-28, Rider out-scored Canisius 10-4 over the final 3:37 of the first half to cut the lead to 39-38 at half time.
Rider led 23-20 before Canisius went on a 10-3 run, seven points by Turner, to take a 30-26 lead.
Canisius out-rebounded Rider 46-38. "I thought we fought hard and rebounded the ball well in the first half," Dempsey said, "but in the second half they seemed to be quicker to the ball."
Rider defeated Canisius 12 straight times before losing here in Buffalo last year. Rider and Canisius have now met 29 times since the series began in 1929-30, with Rider winning 24.
Rider stays in Western New York to take on Niagara Sunday afternoon (4pm) in a game televised on the Madison Square Garden Network. Niagara lost 74-65 to Saint Peter's Friday night, falling to 11-10 overall, 4-5 in the MAAC.
"We're down on ourselves but we're not down on each other," Dempsey said. "Our better players are feeling accountable and I think that's good. But until we start getting better performances from our better players we probably going to continue to struggle. We're hanging in there emotionally and we're trying to figure out how to start playing better."
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