Men's College Basketball
Rider University 73, University Maryland Baltimore County 66 (OT)
BALTIMORE, MD- It will go down in Rider annals as the fastest to 100. For Bronc head coach Tommy Dempsey, it must have seemed like an eternity.
Rider's overtime victory over UMBC Saturday night was victory number 100 for Dempsey as the Rider head coach. The 100 wins in 176 games is the fastest any head coach has ever gotten to 100 victories at Rider.
The victory snaps Rider's six-game losing streak. "I was starting to wonder if my career was going to end at 99," Dempsey joked after the game.
Senior Jeff Jones (Chester, PA/Monsignor Bonner) scored 22 points and senior Brandon Penn (Philadelphia, Pa./Paul Robeson) added 20 to lead the Broncs. "It was good to see Jeff come back and have a strong game," Dempsey said, "and Brandon played well."
Jones made two foul shots with 2:22 left in overtime to give Rider (2-10) a 66-64 lead and made two more with 16.5 seconds left for a 71-66 lead. The Broncs made all eight of their overtime free throws.
"We were able to close out overtime after we lost all of the momentum at the end of the second half," Dempsey said.
UMBC (1-9) out-scored Rider 20-6, 10 points by Chase Plummer, to tie the score at 60-60 with :47 seconds left in the second half. Jones made two foul shots with 13 seconds left in the second half to give Rider a 62-60 lead, but UMBC's Brian Neller made two of three foul shots with 5.6 seconds left in regulation to send the game into overtime.
"Going into overtime I don't think a lot of people in this building thought we'd be the winner tonight," Dempsey said, "the way the end of regulation unfolded."
Plummer finished with 22 points and 11 rebounds and Neller finished with 19 points.
Rider junior Jonathon Thompson (Orlando, Fla./Jones) made a three-point field goal to give Rider a 69-64 lead with 14 seconds left to play. "Jon made a big three," Dempsey said. Thompson finished with 11 points.
UMBC used a 9-0 run to cut the Bronc lead to 43-35 with 11:22 left to play.
Rider led 27-22 early in the second half before out-scoring UMBC 16-4, six points each by Penn and Jones, to take a 43-26 lead with 13:27 left.
Holding an 11-9 lead, Rider went on a 12-2 run, eight points by Penn, to take a 23-11 lead with 7:07 left in the first half and Rider led 25-19 at intermission.
Rider freshman Eddie Mitchell (Philadelphia, PA/La Salle) scored the first four points of the game and finished with six points and six assists without a turnover. "Eddie took care of the ball," Dempsey said.
Rider shot 50 percent from the field and held UMBC to 30 percent shooting, but the Retrievers out-rebounded the Broncs 53-33. "Obviously the rebounding was the issue," Dempsey said, "there is no hiding behind that. We got hammered on the glass. We did hold them to 30 percent, so the zone was active and tenacious. We just couldn't get it off the backboard."
Also for Rider, sophomore Daniel Stewart (Philadelphia, PA/Neumann-Goretti) added seven points and eight rebounds. Stewart was just one for his first six foul shots but was two for two from the line in overtime, tying the score at 64-64.
Following two years as a Rider assistant coach and one year as an interim head coach, Dempsey now has a 100-76 record as the Rider head coach. Dempsey holds the record for wins in a season at three different colleges, including Rider, since he first became a head coach in1999-2000 and is now 188-88 in his head coaching career.
The previous fastest to 100 at Rider was Kevin Bannon in 179 games.
It seems winning the first 98 was the easy part for Dempsey. Rider compiled 98 wins in Dempsey's first five years as head coach, as Rider put up more wins than anyone in the Metropolitan area, more than Hofstra (95), LIU (82), St. John's (81) or Seton Hall (79). In the MAAC, only Siena had more wins over the last five years than Rider.
The Broncs travel to Monmouth Thursday. "We're far from a good team right now," Dempsey said, "but we're working. It was important that we won this game. Now we have to go get another one."
-ru-
