Monmouth upsets Charleston: Why Hawks believe ‘we could do this every night’
“I was telling the guys after the game, ‘If they’re the No. 1 team and we beat them, put two and two together.’”
WEST LONG BRANCH – The enduring image of Saturday’s game between Monmouth and the College of Charleston won’t be a signature play or particular moment that turned the game on its head. It will be star guard Abdi Bashir Jr. dribbling out a possession and calling “Come on, come on!” to the crowd to hype up the fans.
It’s not that they necessarily needed any reminding. They had been a critical part of Monmouth’s advantage all afternoon. But the result had been in hand for a while, Charleston had made a few buckets to pull back within 10 and the pace had slowed to a crawl at the end of the game.
These fans were more than happy to get back into it, especially as King Rice subbed in a group of walk-ons and end-of-the-bench players for the final 30 seconds. Who would have thought Monmouth, 3-13 entering the day, would be able to do such a thing against Charleston?
With their 84-73 victory, the Hawks were the first Coastal Athletic Association team to beat Charleston since Feb. 1, 2024. The Cougars had won 15 in a row between the CAA tournament and regular-season play.
“Hats off to our crowd, and I want them to know that definitely impacts the game,” Rice said. “When you show up like this, you know, we just beat the No. 1 team (in the CAA). Nobody’s even been playing with these guys in this league for a couple years, and we outplayed them pretty much start to finish.”
The question now is whether this was a perfect storm good for one day only, or if the Hawks will play up to this level for the rest of the CAA slate.
Through 17 games, Bashir has accounted for 21.5 of Monmouth’s 67.9 points per game – 31.7 percent of the total scoring. He had a less-than-efficient 22 points Saturday, with five rebounds and five assists, but it was the secondary and tertiary contributions that must have taken Charleston by surprise early.
Before Bashir had his first basket, Dok Muordar, Chris Morgan and Cornelius “Boog” Robinson were on the scoreboard (Robinson was tapped to start at the four in place of a recently ineffective Jaret Valencia). Robinson provided energy and muscle at both ends of the floor, and the usually low-scoring pair of centers played fearlessly under the rim.
The only reasons Monmouth trailed 38-35 at halftime were that 1) Charleston outrebounded the Hawks for the latter part of the first half, and 2) Derrin Boyd made a difficult 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer.
That clearly didn’t dispirit Monmouth. Muordar in particular was everywhere to start the second half: In less than three minutes, he blocked two shots, grabbed three rebounds and made a basket to help the Hawks take the lead back.
The list of players who finished the day with at least one season or career high is as long as a CVS receipt. Point guard Madison Durr had season highs of 18 points and six assists; Jack Collins had his first double-double of 2024-25 with a season-best 12 rebounds to go with 10 points; Morgan poured in a career-high 10 points in just 11 minutes; and Muordar’s 14 points and four blocks were both career highs.
You can’t expect every player in the rotation to bring their A+ game every day. But to Rice, getting them involved early was the key.
“(Bashir) can get 20 in his sleep, alright, but when he gets off the ball early then you see Dok’s skills. Then you see Chris Morgan dropping passes to guys. You see a lot of other things that guys can do,” Rice said. “... It’s him growing and being comfortable and trusting his teammates. Get off the ball – we’re going to find you back. We need to find you back. Just be OK with getting off of it and letting these guys rock too.”
The center position hasn’t been a source of offense this year after Nikita Konstantynovskyi transferred to Notre Dame. Muordar, in particular, is a good rebounder who takes pride in his defense, but he’s also shooting 51.4% from the field and 90% (18-of-20) from the free-throw line. He made 4-of-4 in a high-pressure situation in the final two minutes Saturday.
“We have a lot of new players in our team, especially me, I’m new here too,” Muordar said. “I’m trying to figure out the offensive, defensive stuff, and Coach King Rice, the best coach I’ve ever had, telling me like what to do and where to go. When I make a mistake in the game, (Rice says), ‘Calm down. Be patient every time. Things going to come back to you.’ … As a team we need to trust him a lot and believe what he’s saying.”
Muordar spent one season apiece at South Florida and Cleveland State, hardly seeing the floor. When the South Sudan native committed to Monmouth out of the portal in June, the Hawks were already on their foreign tour of Italy. He started behind the 8-ball, and Rice said it’s taken time for Muordar to get used to the team.
Since making his first start against Seton Hall on Nov. 30, Muordar has never left the starting lineup. He’s scored at least eight in four of the past six games.
“Dok is just figuring it out,” Rice said. “He’s a great rim roller, he catches, he can dunk, and when we get the fouls called where he gets bumped, he makes his free throws, you saw that tonight. He’s blocking everything at the rim, and I’m telling you he’s just scratching the surface here, just because he’s getting more comfortable with us.”
Durr, who started at The Citadel for two seasons before coming to the Jersey Shore this year, is probably underrated for what he provides in terms of offense (10.5 points, 3.4 assists, 47.1% from three), defense (1.3 steals per game) and leadership.
“Me and him have a relationship where he doesn’t have to sugarcoat anything to me,” Bashir said. “Like he told me one time that he was open on a shot that I was open for. I was like, ‘You’re crazy if you think that I’m passing you this one.’ So that’s the relationship we have. We can go back and forth and we can yell.
“…He over-talks, he does everything extra, you know, so it’s just like you got to respect somebody that brings it all the time, you know what I mean? … When we play good, you’ll see in the game, Madison plays his best.”
The Hawks are now 2-2 in conference play, but nearly every team in the CAA has at least two wins. There are 14 games to go, eight of them on the road, including the next four – trips south to North Carolina A&T, Campbell, Elon and William & Mary.
For all that was made of the home fans in West Long Branch, Monmouth’s biggest struggle for some time now has been to bring their best selves on the road. The Hawks were 13-1 at home and 2-13 away last season; they’re just 1-9 on the road so far this time around, the only win coming over a bad Seton Hall team just up the parkway.
I asked Bashir how the Hawks can translate what they pulled off Saturday into the upcoming trip.
“I mean, we just gotta believe,” he said. “I was telling the guys after the game, ‘If they’re the No. 1 team and we beat them, put two and two together.’ It’s not hard. We could do this every night, but we just have to buy in and trust and focus – focus, focus, focus on the scouting report.
“It’s not easy to win on the road. If it was everybody would do it. But if we bring the same thing we got right here and bring the same energy and same intensity and same togetherness, I’ve been saying this, there’s nobody that can mess with us. But we can play the ‘if’ game all night, you know. It’s either we’re gonna do it or we won’t, and that’s the main thing, we just got to get it done.”
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Happy Sunday, and thanks as always for stopping by.
It was a tremendously busy day in New Jersey college hoops – every Saturday from now through the conference tournaments will be busy. Let’s clean the glass by taking a quick spin around the state, starting with a game-winner at Jadwin Gym.
Tied 50-50 with Harvard, the Princeton women had 3.7 seconds to get up a shot before the end of regulation. Ashley Chea caught the inbounds pass way outside the 3-point arc and took care of the rest. Chea’s buzzer-beater, her biggest collegiate highlight yet, delivered Princeton a major victory in the Ivy League, as Harvard had a 10-game winning streak going and received 10 votes in this week’s AP poll. The Tigers limited Harvard star Harmoni Turner to 15 points on 5-of-18 shooting, while all five Princeton starters scored between eight and 10 points for a balanced attack. Bottom line: This win could be massive for the potential of a multi-bid Ivy League in the women’s NCAA Tournament again.
The Princeton men shipped up to Cambridge and beat Harvard 68-64 to tip off their Ivy schedule. Xaivian Lee scored 22 points on an efficient 8-of-13 shooting (3-of-5 from three). Don’t tell me it’s too early to say the following: Lee could be on his way to Ivy Player of the Year after Caden Pierce won it last time around. Speaking of Pierce, he played 37 minutes after recovering from an ankle injury that appears to have been a mild sprain. He put up nine points, eight rebounds and four assists in his return.
Seton Hall women’s basketball had a major showdown with Creighton in South Orange, a game pitting two teams unbeaten in the Big East. The Bluejays won it 72-64, sending Seton Hall to 4-1 in the league, though the Pirates made it a game after falling behind by 17 early in the third quarter. They outrebounded Creighton and didn’t make tons of mistakes; they just shot 3-for-20 from three. That can be killer.
As for the men, a 91-85 loss at Providence dropped them to 1-4 in the Big East. Isaiah Coleman, who I wrote about the other day, had a career-high 26 points, Prince Aligbe had 19 and seven rebounds and Chaunce Jenkins was back to his old productive self with 17 in Seton Hall’s best offensive showing of the year. Unfortunately for them, this once-vaunted defense allowed more than 50% from the floor for the sixth time in seven games. “You can’t win games on the road giving up 91 points,” Shaheen Holloway said in his postgame radio interview. “This is why I’m really hesitant to play the small lineup.”
Rider hit a new low point Friday in Buffalo. Facing an 0-14 Canisius team, the Broncs gave up 62.3% shooting (including 13-for-22 from three) and let the Golden Griffins fly away in the second half for an 85-67 win. (Fun cameo: Paul McMillan IV, formerly of NJIT, went for 30 points, seven rebounds and five assists for Canisius.)
It was one thing when the Broncs couldn’t keep up with Villanova and NC State, but now they’re 0-4 in the MAAC and can’t seem to put 40 minutes of good ball together. Friday was their ninth straight loss; I looked back as far as I could on Sports-reference.com, and Rider’s last nine-game skid was Jan. 4-Feb. 1, 1989. The records on this website aren’t complete, but I’ve found no 10-game losing streak. Rider is at Niagara on Sunday at noon.Rutgers will be my focus for the next few days. I’ll be in Piscataway Monday to see the men take on UCLA and back there Wednesday when the women host No. 20 Michigan State. After Rutgers’ discouraging loss to Purdue on Thursday, the Scarlet Knights badly need to beat a vulnerable UCLA team to avoid an 0-3 homestand. The Bruins were No. 22 in this week’s AP poll but won’t be ranked come Monday; for those who don’t know, coach Mick Cronin called some of his players “soft” and “delusional” after a blowout loss at home to Michigan, and then Cronin was tossed for laying into the refs during a road loss to Maryland. Rutgers catches them at the end of a physically and emotionally exhausting East Coast trip.