Shavar Reynolds attacks basket in return to Monmouth lineup during Hawks’ win over Rider. (Photo by Monmouth University Athletics)
With his Monmouth team leading archrival Rider by one point in the final minute of regulation, Reynolds was the beneficiary of a screen set by teammate Walker Miller to penetrate the lane. And the fifth-year senior, whose big-game resume from his time at Seton Hall includes a buzzer-beating game winner over St. John’s, delivered yet again.
After all, it seems as though all he does, and has done throughout his career, is make big shots.
Reynolds’ jumper in the waning moments at the OceanFirst Bank Center gave the host Hawks the cushion they would need, even after splitting a pair of free throws on the next offensive possession, as Monmouth held off Rider for a gritty 60-58 victory that kept its Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season championship hopes alive.
“It feels good to be back,” Reynolds said in his return to the floor after a shoulder injury, tallying 17 points to help make up for lost time. “I feel like myself again. Coach made a great call, he trusted me to get to my spot and make the last basket, but Walk set a great slip screen and without that slip screen, I wouldn’t have been able to get there.”
“We need Shavar,” head coach King Rice added. “He settles me down, he makes me feel like if anything goes wrong, we’ve got a guy out there who will know what to do instantly, and he gets us to run our offense. When Shavar is playing, that plan gets executed. The stuff that I wanted to run, we ran more today. He kept us right for this game.”
Monmouth (17-9, 9-6 MAAC) needed every last drop from Reynolds, as Rider refused to go away at any stage of the evening, once again having a chance to win at the horn for a third time this season, only to be denied as Dwight Murray’s 3-point attempt knifed through the air after an apparent shooting foul was overlooked.
“I had seen it was like, three guys around me, so that’s why I paused a little bit to see if anybody on my team was down the court,” Murray recounted. “I just had to make a play.”
Leading by two at halftime before a 20-7 Monmouth run found the visiting Broncs (10-15, 6-9 MAAC) down nine, head coach Kevin Baggett would later reveal his team was grateful to even have a chance after what he termed a lackluster beginning to the proceedings.
“The way we started the game was disappointing,” he conceded. “I had to call two timeouts early. Tonight, I don’t know what was in their heads the first half, I have no idea. If we played better the first half, we’d have been fine the second half.”
“We played afraid the first half. We played scared, we played tentative, we played passive because they got up in us a little bit. They dominated us on the glass, that was the biggest thing at the end of the day, 17 offensive rebounds. That’s the story of the game right there. That’s toughness, and we lacked that.”
The toughness Baggett lamented for not being present in his team was clearly noticeable on the Monmouth front line, particularly in the form of Nikkei Rutty, who — despite not attempting a shot outside of one free throw — amassed 13 rebounds on a night where the Hawks ripped 45 caroms from the glass to hold Rider at bay.
“That’s one of the best games I’ve ever seen from anybody who didn’t attempt a shot,” said Miller of his frontcourt partner. “He impacted the game as much as anybody and you saw him beat up the boards the way he did tonight, so I think that kind of stuff is what’s going to make this team successful in the end and determine how far we can go.”
“Give him his flowers,” Reynolds chimed in. “He was really the best player on the court.”
Rutty’s backup, Myles Foster, also ensured the energy did not dissipate, posting 10 points and eight rebounds in just 15 minutes of action, adding up to another efficient night for the sophomore.
“Myles is such a talented kid,” Rice praised. “He scores as well as anybody. We’re trying to just get him to grow so he doesn’t always think he’s getting fouled, but on the floor, the kid has gotten better. He’s changed his body, he’s going to change it again this summer because then I think he can be unstoppable on offense, but what he’s given us when you have Walker holding down the five spot, that’s a lot of points from one position on our team.”
Now entering a pivotal stretch to conclude the regular season in which each of Monmouth’s next four games are against teams in the top half of the MAAC standings, Rice hopes the hard-fought win is a harbinger of things to come for a group he has credited for developing him in lockstep with his cultivation of its own talent.
“We’re super happy about this one,” he admitted. “I thought our defense carried us, and now maybe you win one like where maybe it could have gone the other way, maybe some good fortune is coming our way.”
“They make me want to be a better person. Not just a coach, they make me want to be a better dad, they make you want to be better because of how they are, how they approach it. They’ve impacted my life in this short amount of time, to being a basketball coach and a better man, they’ve impacted me more than I’m giving them.”
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