‘Next man up’: How Rider overcame Mervin James’ ejection in a Saint Peter’s slugfest
‘Next man up’: How Rider overcame Mervin James’ ejection in a Saint Peter’s slugfest
“To win seven in a row you need your guys off the bench to play well,” coach Kevin Baggett said.
LAWRENCEVILLE – Thursday began like any other Senior Night game you’ll find in gyms around the country this time of year.
Rider staged a pregame ceremony to honor its seniors, closing with Mervin James, the MAAC’s leading scorer and a Player of the Year candidate. When James was halfway through his walk to center court, he motioned for the rest of his team to come with him, to celebrate with him.
James is wrapping up his fifth season of college basketball and his third at Rider. He has been there for his teammates through three long years, the Broncs’ player leader.
By the end of Thursday’s run-in with Saint Peter’s, it was no longer up to James to carry the day. It was his teammates’ turn to repay him.
“Trust. We trust one another,” Rider coach Kevin Baggett said postgame. “Mervin put something in the (team’s group text) today about, ‘Everybody’s gonna need to step up.’
“Sure enough, man, he wasn’t wrong.”
After James was assessed a flagrant-2 foul and ejected with 16:22 to go, the unlikely combo of Anthony McCall, JT Langston Jr. and T.J. Weeks Jr. made the plays to preserve Rider’s winning streak with a 61-56 victory over their New Jersey rivals.
McCall’s basket with five seconds left allowed the Broncs, once 3-11, to finish the regular season with seven straight wins, get to 15-16 (12-8 MAAC) and assure themselves a first-round bye in next week’s MAAC tournament in Atlantic City.
The game featured a total of 46 personal fouls, four technicals, four foul-outs and James’ ejection that stemmed from a scrap early in the second half.
As Weeks put up a 3-point attempt, there appeared to be a hard foul under the basket by Saint Peter’s. Once James stood up, he exchanged words with some Peacocks players and shoved Mouhamed Sow, making contact with the back of Sow’s head. A review that lasted at least five minutes of real time led officials instead to call a shooting foul on Marcus Randolph, matching technicals for Randolph and Rider’s Corey McKeithan and, pivotally, the flagrant-2 on James for retaliation.
Rider fans protested, and Baggett quickly earned a technical of his own. James’ final game at Alumni Gymnasium had ended in a snap.
“Next man up,” fifth-year senior Allen Powell said. “That’s what we told Ant, next man up.”
McCall, a sophomore wing from Philadelphia, was averaging just 8.0 minutes per game off the bench. Thursday, he set career highs for not only points (11) but field goals (5-for-8) and minutes (21).
“I took a quick prayer, asked God to help me go out here and just do what I had to do,” McCall said. “It was a great environment. Saint Peter’s played rough, but I’m used to that kind of basketball. It doesn’t really faze me. I’m just happy my team had confidence in me, so it gave me more confidence.”
In a second half that saw many more free throws made than field goals, McCall’s steal led to Weeks’ layup – his only good basket in eight attempts – to tie the game at 47 with 8:38 left.
But Saint Peter’s fouled so often that Rider’s next seven points came at the free-throw line, where the Broncs finished just 23-for-38 on the night. Rider didn’t make a shot from the floor for a span of 6:29, until McCall drove the left side of the lane with authority and scored off the glass to break a 54-54 tie.
Latrell Reid countered with a tough floater, but after stops on both ends, Weeks blocked his fourth shot of the night with 13 seconds left, and McCall sped the other way.
Powell fed him at the low block and he tried another layup. Goaltending. Count the basket.
“I can trust Ant. He is Mervin’s substitution,” Baggett said. “Ant’s gonna play over top of the rim, get rebounds, play good defense. Ant’s gonna stay in his lane and play good basketball. We knew he’d be able to get to the rim on some of those putbacks. Fortunately, he was able to get the last one, and it was goaltending, but that was going in. We’ve seen Ant do that a number of times in games and in practice so I’m not surprised.”
James still led the Broncs with 12 points despite playing just 21 minutes. Langston, a juco transfer, made absolutely crucial free throws down the stretch; he finished with 10 points and drew a game-high seven fouls.
“To win seven in a row you need your guys off the bench to play well,” Baggett said. “Ruben (Rodriguez), JT, Ant, a number of different guys that really stepped up. … That’s the reason why we’ve gotten better and we’ve been on this winning streak, because of those guys on top of our regular starters that have done a good job throughout his streak.”
Then there was Weeks, not a bench guy but the only “outsider” in this year’s starting five as a grad transfer from UMass. His poor shooting night did not take away from his eight rebounds, four blocks and three steals.
“He’s an intangible guy,” Baggett said. “I know he was struggling a little bit from the perimeter, but again, he can affect the game in a number of different ways, which is what he did. That’s what we’ve seen, even starting back when we played Marquette, it’s one of the first things I noticed about him.”
Baggett will want his team to work on free throws, clean up its zone defense and keep making tweaks before the MAAC tournament begins – “We’ll have some different things we throw out come tournament time” – so the week off until Thursday’s quarterfinal game comes at a perfect moment.
Rider ought to have its star player back for that game, too, notwithstanding any supplemental discipline from the conference.
James was waiting for his guys when the buzzer finally sounded Thursday.
“He was the first person outside the locker room as soon as the game ends,” Powell said. “Dapping everybody up, happy for everybody. Cheering us on as we always do.”
………
Happy Friday, people. Thanks for stopping by for this extra edition of Guarden State. It was neither the prettiest nor the best game of basketball I’ve covered this season, but Thursday’s contest was probably the most memorable with the most gripping finish.
Rider can finish as high as the No. 3 spot in the MAAC if Saint Peter’s loses to first-place Quinnipiac and Marist falls to Niagara on Saturday. Otherwise, the Broncs will be in the 4-5 quarterfinal game, opponent TBD.
Saint Peter’s, meanwhile, fell out of contention for the regular-season title and No. 1 seed with yesterday’s results. My Peacocks takeaway: They had the best player on the court in Corey Washington (22 points, 12 boards), they have a great defense and their style will wear down opponents of all shapes and sizes. But 27 fouls is a lot, even for this team – it tied their season high. In a conference like the MAAC where almost every game is close, you have to pick your spots. If Rider made even five of the 15 free throws it missed, Thursday’s game wouldn’t have been close. But Quinnipiac, for instance, ranks 15th in the country at 78% from the line.
Let’s clean the glass and get on with the weekend:
Rutgers dropped to .500 on the season and 7-12 in the Big Ten by losing 78-66 at Wisconsin. Gavin Griffiths (4-for-9 from three) found his stroke and Jeremiah Williams did what he always does; together they provided 30 of Rutgers’ 66 points. After some good fight in the second half of Sunday’s loss at Nebraska, the same effort was apparently lacking when Wisconsin took control Thursday. (It doesn’t help that Mawot Mag was out again.) The Scarlet Knights’ Senior Day is Sunday against Ohio State; they can achieve no higher than a No. 12 seed in the Big Ten tournament next week.
Quick reminder of the stakes for Princeton men and women on Saturday: As long as the men beat Penn at the Palestra, they win at least a share of the regular-season title and the No. 1 Ivy Madness seed because the potential tiebreaker with a 12-2 Yale team would come down to NET ranking. As long as the women beat Penn at home, they win at least a share of the regular-season title and the No. 1 Ivy Madness seed because the potential tiebreaker with a 13-1 Columbia team would come down to NET ranking. Sound good?
Up at Mohegan Sun Arena, just 90 minutes after I post this, the seventh-seeded Seton Hall women will begin their Big East tournament journey against 10th-seeded DePaul. Should they win, they would draw a second-seeded Creighton group that they nearly defeated in the regular-season finale. (UConn is on the other side of the bracket.) But the only way the Pirates make the women’s NCAA Tournament is by running the table and stunning UConn; the 48-team WNIT is the Pirates’ best postseason bet.