Rider faces Saint Peter’s in MAAC Tournament
LAWRENCEVILLE >> Boardwalk Hall has hosted its share of hard-hitting trilogies, so it’s fitting that the third installment of Rider and Saint Peter’s takes place in Atlantic City’s historic venue.
Bring you hard hat and mouthguard.
To recap the two meetings this season: The Broncs won both games by five points, and in the most recent matchup one week ago the teams combined for 45 fouls, three technical fouls, four foul outs and an ejection.
“That’s against Saint Peter’s basketball,” senior guard Allen Powell said. “It’s always going to be a rough game. They are always going to go out and play hard so we have to match the energy and then have more energy to come out with the win.”
The Peacocks have Rider’s number at the MAAC Tournament. The Jersey City boys are 6-3 all-time against Broncs at league tournament, which includes a 5-2 mark in quarterfinal games. SPU has knocked Rider out in the quarters in 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2023. In three of those four instances, the Broncs were the higher seed — they were the top seed in 2018 and the No. 2 seed in 2015 and 2023 — and that will be the case again on Thursday night as Rider is seeded fourth and SPU fifth.
The Broncs got to the fourth seed by ripping off seven straight wins to close the regular season. They have won games in all sorts of ways during this streak.
Just take the regular-season finale for example when they beat the Peacocks after star forward Mervin James — the league’s leading scorer who was named a unanimous First Team All-League player this week — was the player ejected with over 16 minutes still to be played. Rider got major contributions off the bench from Anthony McCall and JT Langston Jr. to win that game.
Expect another low scoring slugfest on Thursday night (9 p.m., ESPN+) as SPU is second in the MAAC in scoring defense (64.1) and field goal percentage defense (42.2%) and has the league’s Defensive Player of the Year in the Trenton Catholic product Latrell Reid.
“To win seven in a row, you need the guys off the bench to have played well,” coach Kevin Baggett said. “I don’t want to be remiss and leave anybody out, but that’s the reason we’ve gotten better and been on this winning streak because of those guys on top of our regular starters who have done a good job in this streak.”
Is that what makes this team different from all the past ones that have flamed out in March?
“I feel like the guys from last year have learned from their mistakes and they’ve told all the newcomers about the mistakes that they had last year,” graduate student T.J. Weeks Jr. said. “It’s for us to build upon that and do it for the older guys and the seniors that have been here and been through that.”
Perhaps the biggest factor is the trust the players have in each other. James sent a group text before the regular-season finale that everybody needed to step up. He wasn’t wrong.
To win in March, and truly experience the Madness of this month, that needs to happen for three nights in Atlantic City.
“We started out slow, but we knew once we got the role and got to winning, we were going to keep it going,” Powell said. “Everybody is bought in right now.”