Dwight Murray (5) is mobbed by teammates as his 22 points lifted Rider out of 11-point hole and past Canisius in MAAC tournament opener. (Photo by Carolo Pascale/The Rider News)
Before descending upon Atlantic City for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, Kevin Baggett spoke of how games in March were not decided by records or standings, but rather, by which side approached the game the right way and executed accordingly.
For a Rider team who had won only five games all year and trailed by 11 points with just under 12 minutes remaining in regulation, such advice would again be easier said than done.
Yet Baggett’s message to his young Broncs squad remained consistent.
“My message to our guys was, ‘just stay together,’” Rider’s ninth-year head coach intoned after the Broncs — the No. 11 seed in the MAAC tournament — overcame their double-digit deficit to upend sixth-seeded Canisius, 78-76, at Boardwalk Hall. “If you want to win in this tournament, you guys gotta stay together, play together, and just continue to believe.”
“When we got down by 11, the guys in the huddle kept saying, ‘we got this, we got this, we’ll just keep battling back.’ And our guys did that.”
No further evident was the bulldog mentality than in sophomore guard Dwight Murray, Jr., the transfer from Incarnate Word who was snubbed of first team all-MAAC recognition Monday morning, mere hours before Rider tipped off its postseason journey. Plagued by first-half foul trouble, Murray shook off the lackluster beginning by shining when it mattered most, sparking the Broncs’ game-ending 7-0 run with a 3-pointer that tied the score at 76-all with just over a minute to go before recording the last of his five assists on Rider’s next offensive possession, feeding Dontrell McQuarter for what turned out to be the game-winning bucket.
“Oh yeah, I definitely felt like that,” said Murray when asked if he had something to prove, a slight he turned into a game-best 22 points to accompany five assists. “We’ve been doubted since the beginning. I knew we were good from the get-go.”
“My teammates were yelling, ‘Trell is open! Trell is open!’” Murray recounted as he relived the sequence that led to McQuarter’s inside layup. “I turned around, because I was looking for him, and I just threw it up to the point that he could catch it, and he just went up with it strong.”
For McQuarter, who finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds to validate his coach’s belief that he remained a key cog in the Broncs’ machine even in the face of off-the-court adversity, the heroic turn provided a feel-good moment of sorts that also doubled as a confidence booster.
“Oh, man,” a proud and jubilant Baggett said as he began his praise of McQuarter. “I just go back to the Monmouth game two games ago, where he really, really struggled. He’s had a tough year. He’s had a family emergency, he’s been away from the team, and to be honest with you guys, I wasn’t sure if he was going to come back dealing with his family situation at home. I give the young man credit that he’s been able to block out some of that and come and play with some adversity at home.”
“It was good to see him be able to finish that because he got a foul and he was frustrated by that. We just said, ‘Hey, man, just keep playing, help us win. You’ll score a basket that’ll help us get back in this thing and possibly win it.’ We just wanted to keep his head in the game.”
Rider (6-16) did not have it easy throughout, running with Canisius in the opening minutes before the Golden Griffins’ defense settled in through the middle stages of the first half and shifted back into offensive overdrive on the way to a 42-36 halftime advantage on the part of the Griffs. The cushion reached its apex with 11:51 remaining on the clock, and a 66-55 lead for the Buffalo residents after a 3-point play by Armon Harried, who fueled a majority of the 12-3 run that allowed Canisius to build such an expansive edge.
“He was terrific,” head coach Reggie Witherspoon said of Harried. “He fought hard the entire night. He’s done so the last several games and played heavy minutes, so he’s given us a great effort all year.”
The Broncs chipped away, however, using a 14-5 run to claw within two points after Allen Powell’s pull-up jumper made the score 71-69. Canisius answered with a potentially backbreaking 3-pointer off the hands of Jordan Henderson to go up five with 2:38 to play, but it was the last shot to go through the net for the Griffs, who still had two chances to win in the final 28 seconds.
“We were just trying to get stops, and we were having a hard time getting stops,” Malek Green assessed of Canisius’ defensive efforts. “They just kept making runs.”
A turnover by Majesty Brandon on an errant pass was a mulligan after Jeremiah Pope missed two free throws for a Rider team that had made 26 of 30 attempts at the foul line prior to Pope’s trip to the stripe. Brandon rebounded the second foul shot, then drove inside and kicked to an open Jacco Fritz for what would have been a straightaway three for the win. The Dutchman’s effort was too strong, as was Green’s putback attempt for the tie, which fell into the arms of McQuarter to seal only the third MAAC tournament win for a No. 11 seed and first since Marist used a torrid 3-point shooting effort to defeat Quinnipiac in 2015, and send Canisius back home after a valiant two-month showing in which it played its final seven games of the season away from home and overcame a 42-day pause following a positive COVID-19 test.
“They obviously fought through a lot,” Witherspoon remarked, putting the season in perspective. “We haven’t had a home game since January 2, and given that our travel is more difficult than everyone else in the league, when you do play and you have that kind of travel involved, they’ve come through a lot. We’ve had very few practices, and even less of those with the entire team, so it’s a challenge. They fought through as many of those as they possibly could, so I’m proud of their effort.”
With the win, Rider gets two days off before preparing for in-state rival Saint Peter’s in the quarterfinals Thursday, against whom the Broncs split a pair of regular-season meetings, and now look to slay for Baggett’s elusive first win in the MAAC’s round of eight.
“We can play with anybody,” Murray declared. “I knew we were a great team. We just needed to learn how to play together.”
“We never had a doubt,” Powell expounded. “People outside had their opinions, but we knew what it was. We played together like Coach said, and we got the W.”
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