Richard GwinFollowing Monday night’s 87-60 loss to Kansas University at Allen Fieldhouse, Rider basketball coach Kevin Baggett joked that he knew, however briefly, what it felt like to be KU coach Bill Self.
Not because he fields a roster full of McDonald’s All-Americans or has won at an unheard of pace since taking over at Rider three seasons ago. Instead, because, like Self following last week’s 32-point loss to No. 1 Kentucky in the Champions Classic, Baggett, too, was searching for something else in the eight-ounce Muscle Milk cup that sat in front of him at the podium in the media room following his team’s 27-point loss.
“I know when Coach Self said last week he was hoping this was vodka, I was hoping the same thing tonight, the way we played,” Baggett said. “We knew we were coming into a little bit of a buzz saw after the performance they had against Kentucky and some of our key guys didn’t step up tonight.”
Asked how he prepared his team for a situation that was daunting to start with and become downright scary when KU (2-1) took one on the chin against the Wildcats, Baggett shrugged and offered an honest assessment.
“I don’t think you can,” he said. “The only thing we can do is talk about it. We watched enough film, we practiced against the different things we needed to work on, we just needed to be able to come out and take their initial punch and we kind of got off to a slow start.”
The Broncs (2-2) were overmatched from the start but used scrappy play and some easy buckets early to hang in there during the game’s first seven minutes. Then Self subbed freshman Cliff Alexander into the game and the big fella’s personal 9-0 run that pushed KU’s lead from 15-8 to 24-8 in 2:24 changed the entire tone.
“Just a (tough) match-up,” Baggett said of why Alexander was so effective. “He’s a talented player. I really don’t have the answer to that other than we just didn’t do a good enough job guarding him.”
Added RU forward Xavier Lundy, who led the Broncs with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting: “He’s just a big presence in the paint, he’s a tough kid, pretty hard to guard and we didn’t have an answer for it today.”
There certainly were other areas of Monday’s game that made it tough for the Broncs to compete. KU shot 60 percent from the floor, dished 22 assists on 31 field goals and sent wave after wave of fresh, talented players at the Rider lineup.
“I think that was the difference between us and them,” Lundy said. “Their whole team played with a lot of energy and I think some of our players didn’t play up to their level, energy-wise. I think that’s what gave them the extra boost on the court.”
Disappointed by how his team played but not discouraged entirely, Baggett said his squad would use Monday’s lessons as a “teaching point” for the rest of the season.
“We’re thinking (long-term), getting to the (NCAA) tournament and having to come back and compete against a team like this,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go before that happens.”
