November 25, 2006 - Rider 70 Northeastern 69
November 25, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Men’s College Basketball
Rider University 70, Northeastern University 69
LAWRENCEVILLE--Senior Terrance Mouton (Lafayette, LA/Acadiana) got knocked out of the game with 5:25 remaining with a head butt, got stitched up, changed his bloody shirt, and came back in to score a lay-up with five seconds left to give Rider a victory over Northeastern in the Bronc home opener. “I like to have the ball in my hands in those situations,” said Mouton, Rider’s only senior. “I try to have the confidence to like to be in those situations. I’m a senior, so I need to step up in those situations.”
“Terrance is our quarterback,” said Rider head coach Tommy Dempsey. “He really led the break well and had us in such a good rhythm.”
Trailing 68-61, Northeastern (1-5) out-scored Rider 8-0, four points by freshman forward Manny Adako. Adako’s jumper with 17 seconds left gave Northeastern a 69-68 lead. That was just the second lead change of the game. “I was just lucky enough to make a play down the end of the game,” Mouton said. “The entire right side of the court was open, and Jason came over and set the screen. If the big man came over I was going to try to draw contact, but he didn’t, so I just made the lay-up.”
“We were really leaking oil there,” Dempsey said. “It can really deflate you to dominate most of the game and all of a sudden you’re down with just 17 seconds remaining. We showed good composure, got the ball to our play maker and he bailed us out. That would have been a really tough loss.”
Trailing 58-46 with 10:40 left to play, Northeastern went on a 13-6 run, nine points by senior guard Adrian Martinez, to cut the lead to 64-59 with 3:20 remaining. “It was very obvious that our flow was disrupted when Terrance had to go out and get stitches,” Dempsey said. “We were in such a nice rhythm and then we got a little bit shaky in Terrance’s absence.”
The victory was the third in a row for Rider (3-1).
“That was just a hard fought college basketball game,” said Dempsey. “You have to give Northeastern a lot of credit, they didn’t quit. We were in a good flow for most of the game, but their kids hung in there and battled right to the end. We had a hard time getting stops down the stretch.”
Trailing 19-13, Rider went on a 16-1 run, eight points from sophomore Lamar Johnson (Scranton, PA/Scranton), to take a 29-20 lead with 6:39 left in the first half. Johnson finished with 12 points off the bench.
Martinez scored the final five points of the half to cut Rider’s lead to 36-31 at intermission. Martinez finished with a game-high 22 points, making five of 10 three-pointers. Northeastern made nine of 25 three-pointers.
“We knew they were a three-point shooting team,” Dempsey said. “some of those threes were on the run, guys hanging all over them. We still held them to under 40 percent from the field (25-63), so overall we did a good job on them, but they made some big clutch shots down the stretch.”
Sophomore Harris Mansell (Cheltenham, PA) compiled 12 points and seven rebounds for Rider.
Rider junior Jason Thompson (Mt. Laurel/Lenape) added 12 points and nine rebounds, along with a career-high seven assists.
Rider freshman Ryan Thompson (Mt. Laurel/Lenape) added 12 points and junior Joel Green (Philadelphia, PA/Harrison) added a career-high 11 points. Mouton finished with nine points, four assists and four rebounds.
Rider hosts Drexel Monday at 7:30 pm.
-RU-
