Box score
LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ—Rider poured in 40 first-half points, including seven three-point baskets, to built a big lead en route to a comfortable 70-49 men's basketball win over visiting NJIT Saturday afternoon.
The combination of Rider's hot shooting, including 7-for-12 from three-point distance, and NJIT's difficulty making shots from anywhere on the floor in the opening 20 minutes resulted in a 40-19 halftime lead for the Broncs, who went on to raise their season record to 6-3 with Saturday's victory.
Rider finished four double-figure scorers, paced by junior guard Ryan Thompson's game-high 19 points. Classmate Lamar Johnson added 13 points, while sophomores Mike Ringgold and Patrick Mansell each finished with 11 points.
Ringgold, a quick and active 6-foot-7 forward, led all rebounders with eight and Mansell was a big part of Rider's first-half offense, coming off the bench and making all three of his three-point attempts.
NJIT's scoring leaders were Gary Garris (14 points) and Brendon Lyn (10). Lyn, who is 5-9, led the Highlander rebounders, matching his career-high in that category with seven. He had the same number on November 17 at Penn State.
The Broncs, who are rated as one of the stronger teams in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, never trailed against NJIT, scoring on their first two shots and quickly going ahead, 6-2 on Ringgold's second basket 2:48 into the game.
Gary Garris answered for the Highlanders with a three-pointer on the next possession at 16:49, but the game soon turned overwhelmingly in Rider's favor.
NJIT, which has had recurring scoring droughts this season, went scoreless for nearly five minutes Saturday after the Garris trey, finally picking up its sixth point when Jheryl Wilson made the second of two free throws at the 11:53 mark.
With the Highlanders stuck at five, Rider piled on 12 points, extending its lead from 6-5 to 18-5. Rider missed its first two shots after Garris had closed the lead to one, but then the Broncs made five shots in a row—a three by Johnson, a layup and dunk by Thompson, a layup by Brandon Penn and a three by Mansell—to take control.
After Wilson's free throw temporarily broke the slide for NJIT, Teddy Schickel made what would be his only bucket of the game to pull the Highlanders to within 10 points, 18-8, with 11:24 left in the half. But Rider made three-point baskets on its next two possessions to go ahead 24-8 and the game was never closer than that again.
While the first-half rebounding was even at 22 for each team and the turnovers were close (9 for NJIT; 7 for Rider), the shooting differential was glaring. Rider made 54 percent of its total field goal tries (15-28) and was even better on threes (7-12; 58 percent), struggling only at the foul line (3-8).
NJIT got the ball close to the basket more than it had been in recent games. But the Highlanders rarely got the payoff, missing six layups and six foul shots after being fouled in the act of shooting in the first 15 minutes of the game. Trailing by 13 points at that stage, the Highlanders could have been right in the game by making half of the missed layups and half of the missed foul shots.
Rider added seven more points to its lead over the last five minutes of the half, taking a 40-19 advantage to the locker room. Thompson had 10 points at the break, followed by Ringgold and Mansell with nine each and Johnson with seven. Lyn led NJIT with five points.
Rider, which had shot so well in the first half, did not get its 10th point of the second half until the 9:18 mark, but the Highlanders never seriously threatened the home team, getting only as close as 16 points at 50-34 after a Gary Garris layup with 8:19 remaining.
The second-half totals showed Rider shooting just 8-for-26 (31 percent) from the field, including 1-for-8 on threes, but the Broncs made 13 of 16 free throws, for a total of 30 points in the half. NJIT, too, scored 30, making a third of its shots from the field and shooting 7-for-10 at the foul line.
Freshman Isaiah Wilkerson made his NJIT debut, playing 13 minutes in the second half. He finished with three points and four rebounds in his first action with his new team.
Wilkerson, a 2008 graduate of Curtis High School on Staten Island, is newly-enrolled in NJIT. He was a first-team all-Staten Island honoree after leading his 2007-08 team to a school-record 25 wins.
The Highlanders will return to central Jersey for a game Tuesday at 7:30 pm against Rutgers in Piscataway.
Rutgers will be the second Big East Conference foe for NJIT this season. The Highlanders lost at St. John's on December 8. Last December 13, Rutgers came out ahead in the first-ever men's basketball meeting between the schools, scoring a hard-fought 65-55 win over NJIT in the Prudential Center.
