Rider’s Baggett on brink of 100 career wins
Kevin Baggett remembers his first win as Rider’s head coach — a 79-54 rout over Robert Morris — and now in his sixth season, Baggett is on the brink of a milestone.
With one more victory, Baggett will become the sixth coach in the program’s 90-year history to reach 100 career wins.
John Carpenter holds the all-time record with 292 wins over 23 years at the helm from 1966-89.
“For me to have 100 wins in six years, I think that’s pretty good,” said Baggett, who has a 99-86 career record. “It’s hard in this profession. People don’t understand that coaches are here today and gone tomorrow. For me to have some success at this point, I’m just blessed and thankful and just hope that I can continue to lead these young men at Rider and coach them up and win as many games as we can for however long I’m here.”
The Broncs (14-7, 7-2) have six of their final nine games at home, beginning Friday night against Saint Peter’s. Not only would a victory give Baggett career win No. 100, it would move Rider into a first-place tie in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
“We just go game by game,” Baggett said. “This group can’t think any further than that nor do I want them to think any further than that. … It will be good that we can stay in our own beds here and our players can stay in the dorms and we can practice here. I’d like to think it’s an advantage, but I have no idea. I want to make sure these guys get better everyday.”
The Broncs are riding a three-game winning streak with those triumphs coming by a combined nine points, including Tuesday night’s 90-88 victory over Fairfield in which Rider scored the game’s final eight points.
“Sometimes I sit there and I say to my coaches, ‘I don’t know how the hell we won,’” Baggett said. “Give our guys credit because I tell them in the locker room if we don’t do this, don’t do that then we’re going to lose, and give Stevie (Jordan) a lot of credit because he wills us and he’s like ‘we’re not losing.’ That’s their mentality — that we’re not going to lose.”