February 5, 2006 - Rider 73 Canisius 69
February 5, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Men’s College Basketball
Rider University 73, Canisius College 69
LAWRENCEVILLE—Nothing like positive reinforcement to cure what ails you. Junior Terrance Mouton (Lafayette, LA/Acadiana) suffered one of the worst shooting games of his career on Friday (0 for 12 from the field, 0 for 7 from three-point range), but after looking at some of his better games on tape, scored 17 points on Sunday, making all six of his foul shots, and grabbed five rebounds, to lead Rider to a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference victory over Canisius Sunday.
“I was a little down after Friday night’s game,” said Mouton, “but today before the game Coach (Dane) Fischer showed me some highlights of a few of my games earlier this year and that helped me a lot today with my confidence. I had a good feeling after that.”
Mouton made four of eight shots from the field Sunday, including three three-pointers. “As a point guard I’m mostly looking to give the ball to my teammates, but if we’re struggling to score and my shot will help the team out, I’ll take it. I was feeling good today,” Mouton said.
“One thing I try to coach is offensive confidence,” said Rider coach Tommy Dempsey. “We have good shooters so when they have good looks I want them to shoot.”
With the score tied at 58-58, Rider (8-13, 4-9 MAAC) went on an 8-3 run, six points by sophomore Jason Thompson (Mt. Laurel, NJ/Lenape), to take a 66-61 lead with 2:40 left to play. “I don’t think we took a bad shot in the last 10 minutes of the game,” Dempsey said. Thompson finished with 16 points and seven rebounds, and a career-high four blocked shots.
Rider made five of seven foul shots in the final 38 seconds, four by Mouton, to seal the victory.
Canisius (5-16, 4-9 MAAC) scored the first 12 points of the game and led 22-9. “We have a resilient group,” said Dempsey. “I think we’re a little bit unfazed if we fall behind because we’ve been able to come back from behind so many times before.”
“We were embarrassed Friday night at Iona,” said Canisius head coach Mike MacDonald, referring to the Golden Griffin’s worse MAAC loss ever (95-58), “and we were determined to come out strong today.”
“The zone defense deflated us early, and it made us a bit stagnant early. It took us a while to get into the flow,” said Dempsey.
The Broncs went on a 14-2 run, eight points by senior Edwin Muniz (Passaic), to take a 25-24 lead with 7:30 left in the first half, Rider’s first lead of the game, and the Broncs led 38-35 at halftime. Muniz finished with 12 points, seven rebounds and five assists. “I let the game come to me,” said Muniz. “During that stretch the shots were there for me to take and fortunately I was able to knock them down. Things went my way.”
Trailing 50-47, Rider went on a 9-0 run, hitting three consecutive three-point field goals, two of the threes coming from sophomore Kam Warner (Pleasantville), to take a 56-50 lead with 9:28 left to play. Rider made 11 three-pointers for the game.
Canisius had all five starters score in double figures, led by Corey Herring, who compiled 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Canisius made 10 of 19 three-pointers. “They shot the ball extremely well,” Dempsey said. “Shooting 53 percent from three kept them in the game.”
Rider travels to Marist Wednesday. “We’re still in the running to win this league,” said Muniz. “We have a lot of young talent that is starting to play well. No mater where we finish in the regular season, we can put it together for a few games in a row in the tournament.”
-RU-
