Rider to open MAAC slate with four of first six on road
Rider will begin the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference portion of its schedule on Jan. 3 when it travels to Fairfield.
The MAAC released its 18-game league slate for each school on Wednesday. Because of the unbalanced schedule, the Broncs play Fairfield and Siena once each. The opener in Bridgeport, Conn., serves as the lone meeting with the Stags, while the Saints visit Lawrenceville on Feb. 10.
Four of Rider’s first six conference games are on the road, including the Western New York trip (at Canisius, at Niagara) and a date with Iona on Jan. 25 in New Rochelle, N.Y., to close that stretch. The Broncs, Gaels and Golden Griffins are likely to be the top three teams in the league’s preseason poll.
Five of the last seven are at Alumni Gymnasium, a stretch that features a visit from Monmouth on Feb. 15 and what potentially could be huge game against Iona on March 1.
The regular season finishes on March 3 at Marist before heading to the Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., for the MAAC Tournament from March 7-11 (the Broncs don’t have a regular season game in the TU Center for a second straight year). It’s there where Rider will have to reverse an ugly trend of seven straight quarterfinal exits.
This is the final season for the conference tournament in Albany before the setting shifts to Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The MAAC is also moving back to a 20-game league schedule next season after receiving negative feedback on the 18-game shift.
“We’re going to be debating this forever and ever,” commissioner Rich Ensor said in June. “As long as I’ve been commissioner, we’ve been debating scheduling policies and long after I’m not commissioner, they’ll be debating scheduling policies.”
Rider’s non-conference portion of the schedule features marquee road games at UCF, West Virginia, VCU, Hofstra, Washington State (LVC), Drake (LVC) and a pair of contests in the Las Vegas Classic at the Orleans Arena on Dec. 22-23.
Robert Morris and Norfolk State are both scheduled to visit Alumni Gym with a formal announcement on the full non-league slate expected soon.
The Broncs return all of the major contributors from a team that went 22-10 (15-3), won on a share of the MAAC regular-season title and earned a berth in the NIT.