LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ – The Rider University men's basketball team erased a seven-point deficit with less than four minutes left in regulation to defeat hOURglass rival Saint Peter's, 63-60, Friday night at Alumni Gymnasium. With the win, the 100^th in Rider Head Coach Kevin Baggett's career, the Broncs improve to 15-7 (8-2 MAAC). Saint Peter's slips to 8-12 (2-7 MAAC).

Rider struggled offensively in the early going, shooting just 2-for-16 in the opening nine minutes. Meanwhile, Saint Peter's methodically built a 16-point lead on two occasions, the last coming at the 5:38 mark. Rider scored six of the last seven points in the half to whittle the deficit down to 36-27 at the break. Frederick Scott (Munster, IN/Simeon [DePaul]) led the Broncs with nine points in the period.

The Peacocks absorbed the Broncs' punches and counterpunches for much of the first 16 minutes of the second half. Rider got to within one possession, 39-36, on a Tyere Marshall (Philadelphia, PA/Martin Luther King/Putnam Science) bucket at the 16:56 mark, but the Peacocks pushed the advantage back to eight with 9:14 left and it remained a seven-point cushion after Samuel Idowu's lay-up at the 3:47 mark. But Rider scored the next 10 points to take its first lead of the game with 1:18 left. Dimencio Vaughn (New York, NY/Calloway) scored seven points in the span, including 5-of-6 free throws. Kealen Washington-Ives (Providence, RI/Classical/Putnam Science) also knocked down a pivotal three-pointer with 2:21 left.

Saint Peter's got two free throws from Elijah Gonzales with 11 seconds left. And, after Washington-Ives hit a pair from the charity stripe to make it a 63-60 Rider advantage with nine seconds remaining, Nick Griffin got a clean look at a left-corner three at the buzzer, but it would not fall.

Quotes & Notes
"What a game. Give John Dunne and his team credit. He's a heck of a coach. His guys battle. They got after us. They threw several punches and we just kept coming back. Give our guys credit for being resilient and not giving up and finding a way to win tonight. It's not about the coaching. It's about the players. These guys really came through."

"(Kealen) showed up tonight, made some big free throws and a big three and a big steal. He's a guy who we trust in and know he can do this the entire time when we need him to do this down the stretch and give Stevie some rest."

"I thank our fans. They were awesome. They really were the sixth man and we need them. And we need to continue to have them come out and support like they did tonight. Because they're huge and these guys feed off their energy. I can't thank our fans enough for really getting after it tonight. It was awesome. It was a great atmosphere and I'm glad we could win for them."

"It's a blessing [100^th career win]. I thank God for giving me this opportunity, putting me in this position to coach these young men. I know a lot of people will say, 'well, you get after your guys.' But what they don't understand is I'm passionate about what I do. I love my guys. They know it. I tell them all the time. We spend a lot of time off the court. It's my job to give them guidance and direction."  – Rider Head Coach Kevin Baggett

"You just lock in and focus. We just wanted to get the win tonight. We were getting big league wins, winning by a lot early. Now we're just finding ways to win. I just wanted to win for the team."

"A win is a win. We'll accept any win that we get. But we've got to get back to practice and back to doing the things that we were doing early like defending and really locking in on defense. Because, as you could see, we're going to struggle to score sometimes. We were stuck on four points for a period of time and that's when we've got to really lock in on defense and really be able to get stops." – Rider junior guard Kealen Washington-Ives

"We had to focus on defense at points. Coach stresses defense I don't know how much – he may have a stroke, God forbid. He stresses it so much on defense. On offense, we'll end up getting points eventually. But the focus is defense. You've got to get stops before you score. And defense wins games." – Rider redshirt freshman Dimencio Vaughn
 
- Baggett became the sixth Rider Head Coach to win 100 games in Lawrenceville, joining Thomas Leyden (1942-43, 1946-60), John Carpenter (1966-89), Kevin Bannon (1989-97), Don Harnum (1997-2005) and Tommy Dempsey (2005-12).
- Baggett achieved the feat in 186 games, the third-quickest Rider Head Coach to the accomplishment (Dempsey – 183 games; Harnum – 185 games).
- Rider now leads the all-time series with Saint Peter's, 35-29, including a 2017-18 regular-season sweep.
- The Broncs led for just 78 seconds in the contest, the last 1:18.
- It marks the second-straight game that Rider led for less than 78 seconds in the second half after the Broncs led for only 62 seconds in the final stanza at Fairfield on Tuesday.  
- Rider returns to action Monday, when it plays host to its other hOURglass rival, Monmouth. Tip-off from Alumni Gymnasium is slated for 7 p.m.

Broncs by the Numbers
- Rider's 27 points in the first half were their fewest of the year in the first half and their second-fewest in a single half this season (24, 2^nd half at Iona, Jan. 14).
- Marshall led the Broncs with 16 points on 7-of-13 from the floor, while also grabbing nine rebounds.
- Vaughn and Scott each added 13 points. Vaughn also narrowly missed a double-double with nine rebounds and rejected three Saint Peter's shots.
- Stevie Jordan (Bensalem, PA/Conwell-Egan/API) had a team-high four assists.
- Washington-Ives scored seven points on 2-for-2 from the floor, including a three-pointer, and 2-for-3 from the free-throw line.
- After Saint Peter's had 10 assists to six turnovers in the first half, Rider turned up the defensive intensity in the second, limiting the Peacocks to just three assists, while Saint Peter's turned it over nine times.
- Rider outscored Saint Peter's, 34-24, in the paint and 23-11 on second chances.