Vaughn hoping to show best version of himself when Rider visits Ole Miss
When Rider steps on the court in Oxford, Miss., to face Ole Miss on Tuesday night it will be the first time the two teams have ever squared off.
They do, however, have one thing in common.
Broncs forward Dimencio Vaughn spent a rather forgettable graduate season at Ole Miss before transferring back to Lawrenceville for his final season on eligibility once the NCAA gave all student-athletes a green light for a re-do on the COVID-impacted 2020-21 campaign.
“I’ve come back home,” Vaughn said earlier this year when discussing his decision to rejoin the program where he was twice a First Team All-MAAC selection. “I made some selfish decision, learned from it a lot, got smarter and took some information from the other school, a high-major, and brought it here.”
He didn’t find the grass greener in the SEC. He joined an Ole Miss squad that was stocked with other transfers and scored just 27 points in 16 total games before entering the transfer portal.
Vaughn has said repeatedly that despite those numbers he’s never viewed it as a lost season.
“I was more in my head than anybody else,” he said. “That’s way out the window. I learned from it and it made me who I am today. It’s not going to change,
I’m going to be aggressive, get to the free throw line and knock my free throws down.”
In his first go-round at Rider, Vaughn was a key cog in a team over a threeyear period that went 5637 overall and 38-18 in the MAAC. The COVID-19 pandemic derailed that side’s last shot at a league title and the group splintered off — two of them graduating and two of them leaving as grad transfers.
His final season has got off to an up-and-down start. The Broncs are 3-5 overall, but they’ve led at halftime in seven of their eight games, including at Ole Miss’ SEC rival South Carolina on Sunday.
Vaughn is averaging 11.9 points and 6.9 rebounds, but he, like the entire Rider roster, hasn’t shot the ball well. He’s connecting at a 39.8% overall and just 27.3% on 3-pointers. In the 201920 season, he averaged 14.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and shot 48.8% from the field in 30 games.
Coach Kevin Baggett has chalked some of that up to a difficult schedule and his team having to reshuffle the deck in the frontcourt due to injuries and other mishaps.
“We have open looks and we’ll make them. It’s only a matter of time,” Baggett said. “I’m not looking for the negatives right now, I’m looking for the positives.
“We’ve played a toughass schedule and we’ve been in every game, we’ve competed. We haven’t had a healthy team, we haven’t had everybody play together, but do we need to make shots? Yes, absolutely, without a doubt.”
Rider needs that to happen on Tuesday if it is going to beat an SEC opponent for the first time since a 2009 upset over Mississippi State.
Vaughn showing Ole Miss the best version of himself would certainly help with that.
“You have to pay attention to everything,” Vaughn said. “Preparing is very key for whatever opponent you have coming up because the game is about runs, so you have to make sure you are ready to fight back and go on your own run because if you can’t run then you are going to have to fight the whole time on defense.”