Men's College Basketball

Rider University 69, Central Connecticut State University 56

LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ— Home is where the heart is. Home is where you hang your hat. Home is where you win.

After a tough, nine-day, four game road trip, the Rider Broncs came home to the friendly confines of Alumni Gymnasium Wednesday night and defeated Central Connecticut.

“It's good to be home,” said Rider head coach Kevin Baggett, “especially after the road trip we were on.”

Senior Matt Lopez (Erial, NJ/Washington Twp.) scored a career-high 20 points and grabbed a career-high nine rebounds to lead Rider to victory.

The victory ended Rider's four-game losing streak.  “It's been tough at times,” Lopez said of the team's recent struggles against the likes of Kansas, Michigan State and Georgia Tech.  “We're trying to build to be a better team in March. We have to take the lessons we learned last week and just get better.”

On the four-game losing streak the Broncs shot just 16 for 77 from three-point range. Wednesday night the cold shooting continued in the first half, making just one of nine three-pointers. “We started off tonight on a bit of a hangover from the trip,” Baggett said, “but finally got it going in the second half.”

Rider (3-5) made six three-pointers in the second half, but it was the inside game that made the difference.

“We decided we weren't going to rely on the perimeter shooting,” Baggett said. “We need to go inside, get the ball into Lopez and Kahlil Thomas. I though those guys did a good job.”

Rider out-rebounded CCSU 40-27 and had 40 points in the paint compared to 20 points in the paint for CCSU.

Thomas (Parkway, Fla./Blanche Ely) made three of five field goal attempts and finished with six points and seven rebounds.

Lopez has now compiled 61 points in his last four games. “My teammates have been finding me,” Lopez said.  “I am only as good as the guards are who find me. Any success I've had lately is due to the guards finding me.”

“I honestly thought 'Lopes' should have been on the all-tournament team in Orlando,” Baggett said. 

Rider out-scored CCSU 20-2 to start the second half, six points by junior Teddy Okereafor (London, England/VCU), to take a 39-26 lead with 12:00 left to play.

Rider led 9-7 before CCSU (0-7) went on a 13-4 run, seven points by Matt Mobley, to take a 20-13 lead, and the Blue Devils led 24-19 at the half. Mobley finished with a game-high 22 points.

Also for Rider, junior Zedric Sadler (Detroit, Mich/Cody) contributed 13 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals off of the bench.  Sadler started the first seven games of the season.  “We needed Zed to bring energy off the bench tonight,” Baggett said, “to be able to score off the bench.”

Rider's bench out-scored CCSU's bench 24-3, including a career-high six points in just 10 minutes off the bench from freshman Anthony Durham (Philadelphia, PA/Abington).

Rider is now 2-0 at home this season.

Rider and Central Connecticut have now met nine times since the series began in 1985-86 with the Broncs winning eight. The lone CCSU win over Rider was in 1990-91 in New Britain when these two teams were East Coast Conference rivals.

The Broncs are now 2-0 at home this season with another home game this Sunday (2pm), hosting Siena in the first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference game of the season.

William Shakespeare once said “People usually are the happiest at home.” Rider basketball fans will be very happy Sunday if the Broncs can make it three home wins in a row.

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