Rice, Monmouth know Rider series will be tough
Monmouth men’s basketball coach King Rice doesn’t need to be reminded how difficult a venue Alumni Gymnasium can be to win at for a visiting team.
The Hawks have lost each of their last three visits to Lawrenceville and are 10-18 all-time on the road against Rider.
But as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference season wraps up this week without fans in attendance, Rice hopes that can be the great equalizer as Monmouth (10-7, 10-6) remains in play for the top seed at next week’s league tournament in Atlantic City.
“It’s one of the places that gets you hot,” said Rice, who is in his 10th season at the West Long Branch school. “The fans are right on top of you. The student section is amazing every time we’re over there, it’s always full. I’m hopeful we can have a little more success without the fans being there.”
The Rider-Monmouth rivalry dates back to when both schools were in the Northeast Conference. The Broncs beat the Hawks in the 1994 NEC title game to clinch their last trip to the NCAA Tournament. Both schools have since migrated to the MAAC, Rider joining ahead of the 1997-98 season and Monmouth for the 2013-14 season.
“When you first get involved in this one, you go ‘OK, it’s another game,’ and they go, ‘no it’s the Rider game,’” Rice said. “Everybody understands we’re both in Jersey, (we) play a lot, we’re close to each other and we’re in the middle, they’re a little bit more south than us. We compete for kids all the time. I know a lot of their young men and it’s just a tough game.”
The teams have split in each of the last four seasons, and even though Rider (5-14, 5-11) is struggling through a down year, Rice, whose team must sweep the two games and have Siena lose twice to Canisius to gain the top seed, knows this won’t be easy.
Monmouth is coming off a COVID pause brought on by contact tracing after an Iona player tested positive following the series between the two teams.
“We got our games taken and it had nothing to do with us,” said Rice, who added his team will wear masks during the games. “You have five, six, seven days off of practice and we don’t get to see the guys. The timing of our shutdown, when we didn’t catch COVID, really hurt our team, but we’re resilient and we’re going to keep moving forward.”
According to KenPom, Monmouth is second nationally in adjusted tempo, which accounts for the number of possessions a team has in a game.
The Hawks’ number of 75.7 ranks only behind Coppin State (77.6).
Additionally, Monmouth’s average possession time is 14.6 seconds, which is the fourth quickest in the nation. In other words, the ball is going up and going up often. The Hawks lead the MAAC in points per game (77.5), 3-point percentage (37.1) and rebounding (37.8).
Deion Hammond (17.4 points) is second in the MAAC in scoring, while George Pappas (12.8) is 10th. Pappas burned the Broncs in West Long Branch last season with 21 points, including a pair of backbreaking 3s. In the reverse fixture — a wire-to-wire Rider win — he scored one point and shot 0-for-9.
Rider coach Kevin Baggett applauded the job his friend Rice has done at Monmouth since getting the job.
“They’ve got a great coach in King,” said Baggett, who is in his ninth season at Rider. “He’s done an unbelievable job there since they brought him in. I’ve got a lot of respect for what he’s got done there as a program. I tried to explain to some of our guys the rivalry that has taken place since they came over to the MAAC from the NEC. A lot of our guys aren’t local guys, so I tried to explain the history as best as I could.”
The Broncs are trying to stay out of last place. They enter the final two contests in 10th, ahead of Manhattan on a tiebreaker, and a pair of wins over Monmouth could get them as high as sixth if other results break their way.