WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ – Shavar Reynolds led the way with 17 points including the winning points with 24 seconds left as Monmouth University Men's Basketball (17-9, 9-6 MAAC) picked up a tough MAAC win over Rider University (10-15, 6-9 MAAC) Friday night, 60-58. With the win, King Rice's 178^th career victory, he tied Dave Calloway for the most wins in Monmouth's Division I program history.
 
Rider opened a quick six-point edge before MU answered with a 10-3 push to take a one-point lead on Walker Miller's triple. Miller's slip to the rim and dunk gave Monmouth the lead at 41-39 and the advantage grew to nine after an 8-0 run made it 51-42. Rider then used a 10-1 push of their own to tie the game at 52 with 3:54 remaining. Myles Foster put MU up inside at 3:37, and George Papas rolled in a triple on the next trip to push the lead to five. Rider got it down to one on consecutive Mervin James jumpers, but Reynolds got to the basket using the window with 24 seconds to go to make it a three-point game. Two Rider foul shots and one MU free throw later, Rider had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead but the Hawks defense shut down a quality attempt, locking down the win.
 
Neither team led by more than four the entire first half save for a brief five-point Monmouth lead in the closing minutes of the period. Back-to-back threes from Reynolds and Papas had MU up 10-6, but a Rider 7-2 run put them back on top. The back-and-forth opening 20 minutes resulted in the Broncs netting the final five points, including Dwight Murray banking home a three in the closing seconds to make it 29-27 in favor of the visitors at the break.
 
NOTES AND QUOTES

"This game could have gone either way and we were fired up for this one. We knew it was a rivalry game and we knew we needed to play well. Take your hat off to Rider but I told our guys we should feel super excited about this win. We had to keep fighting, had to make stops, had to make free throws, had to fight a team off to get a win in our own building when we knew we needed to play well." – Head Coach King Rice
 
"It feels good to be back. Coach made a call late, trusted me to get to my spot and make the last basket. I'm glad Walker set a great slip screen, without that I wouldn't have been able to get there so I'm thankful to him." – Guard Shavar Reynolds Jr.
 
"It feels to great win a game when you shoot like we did. That just means we stuck together and got it done in the end. This game could have gone either way and we're really happy to come out with this win. I think Nikkei Rutty had the best game I've ever seen with zero shots attempted. That's one of the best games I've ever seen from anybody that didn't attempt a shot. He impacted the game as much as anybody and you saw him beat up the boards all night. That kind of stuff is what's going to make this team successful in the end." – Center Walker Miller
 
-King Rice picked up his 178^th career win, tying the program record for Division I wins by a head coach with Dave Calloway. He is tied with Calloway for second in the program's all-time history behind Bill Boylan (364 wins).
-Nikkei Rutty's 13 rebounds marked his sixth double-digit rebounding contest of the season and 12^th game with eight or more boards this year.
-Myles Foster posted his fifth career double-figure game with 10 points.
-Foster tied his career best with eight rebounds, set earlier this year at St. John's.
-Monmouth has now won three in a row over Rider.
-Seven turnovers is MU's second lowest in a game this season.
-Shavar Reynolds led MU with 17 points in his first game back after missing the last two.
 
NUMBERS CRUNCH
-MU won on the glass, 45-39.
-The Hawks had 17 offensive rebounds for the second straight game, their season best.
-MU limited Rider to just 20% from three (3-15).
-Monmouth was better in the paint, 26-20.
-The game featured five ties and 10 lead changes.
 
UP NEXT
-Monmouth hosts Siena Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m.