Rider drops non-conference finale at Penn State
Throw away the tape and turn the focus to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
That’s about the only thing coach Kevin Baggett and Rider can do after a 90-63 loss to Penn State in the non-conference finale on Friday afternoon at the Bryce Jordan Center in University Park, Pa.
This brought to an end a miserable two month start to the season for the Broncs (310), who must regroup ahead of the remaining 18-game MAAC slate in which they begin in an 0-2 hole.
“We just got to get locked in and turn our attention to league play. Go from there,” Baggett said. “Just talk about the next 18 games, but really the next game. Everything is about league play now.”
Kanye Clary scored 29 points for the Nittany Lions (7-6), who led wire to wire and closed the game on a 22-7 run after Rider had cut the lead to 12 with 7:55 remaining.
“Once we started pressing and got some easy basket we got to the free throw line and got after them a little bit,” Baggett said. “We were able to get back into the games and we missed some layups where we could have cut the lead even more. I’m encouraged that guys didn’t give up and kept competing.”
The Broncs got off to a terrible start — they only had six points in the first 14 minutes — and never truly recovered. They trailed by as many as 25 in the first half and by 20 at halftime.
“It’s the same thing that happened last game (against Penn) when we didn’t play well in the first half,” Baggett said. “... You just can’t get
down like that and have to always fight back as much as we had to fight back today.”
In total, they turned the ball over 23 times, which led to 27 points for Penn State. Rider also made just 37.3% of its shots and got outscored 21-6 from the 3-point line. It went 2-for-16 on 3-point tries and was 8-of-39 on non-layups.
Mervin James led the Broncs with 19 points and became the 43rd player in program history to go over 1,000 for his career. James 1,623 career points when adding together his totals at Rider and North Alabama.
The Broncs are back in action next Friday at Quinnipiac.
“I don’t have any doubt that we’ll get back up and get going
again,” Baggett said. “I’m not down by no means. It’s taken longer than what I had hoped and this is a team that still has to come together. Some guys still got to figure out how to play defense at this level and some guys got to understand what their roles are. Once we get there, we’ll be fine.”
TCNJ 90, VASSAR 61
Matthew Solomon and James Beckwith scored 17 points each and the Lions (103) completed a sweep in the Hat City Classic with a victory over Vassar (3-6) in Danbury, Conn.
Nick Koch added 16 points and Matthew Okorie chipped in 10 for TCNJ, which also beat host Western Connecticut State, 82-77, in its first game behind 19 points each from Koch and David Alexandre.
Women’s Basketball PRINCETON 67, VERMONT 47
Madison St. Rose scored 23 points, Kaitlyn Chen added 17 and the Tigers (9-3) pulled away from the Catamounts (8-5) for their fourth consecutive victory in Burlington, Vt.
Chen became the 28th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points. She needed 13 points to reach the milestone.
Princeton shot 50.9% for the game and made seven of its 14 attempts from beyond the arc. The Tigers finish the non-conference portion of their schedule on Sunday at LeMoyne.
Emma Utterback had 23 points for Vermont.