If Kevin Baggett is going to get the 40-minute effort he got out of his team in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference opener then Rider is going to be competitive in its league games. What it still needs to do is learn how to win these games. The Broncs missed a layup that would have tied the game with four seconds remaining after they trailed by eight with 1:15 left and fell to Merrimack, 68-66, on Thursday night at Lawler Arena in North Andover, Mass. “What people don’t understand is when you play all those high-major games it’s hard to learn a lot out of those,” Baggett said. “You learn some things about your team, you don’t learn enough. We’ve not been in this position this year with this group. I thought they battled. We missed some layups, we missed some free throws, but I’m proud of the way they competed.” Baggett said he and his players heard the noise this week after a bad home loss to Coppin State. They saw the social media chatter that they may not win another game. None of them believe that. “My guys read that. I made copies of it,” Baggett said. “… We just need to learn how to win right now. Again, when you play four high-major games, we’ve had one of the toughest schedules in the country. I need people to be patient and this group will come around. You saw it tonight on the road. For those out there who are calling for my head, we’ll be fine. I know my team. I know they’ll compete until the end.” To their credit, they did that on Thursday night. Even after Merrimack (4-6, 1-0) rained in three highly-contested treys after Rider took a 60-59 lead coming out of the under-four media timeout to go up by eight, the Broncs (1-6, 0-1) battled back. Kristupas Kepezinskas and Flash Burton hit 3s on back-to-back trips and after getting a stop with 14 seconds left they had the ball with either a chance to tie or win. A broken play ended up with Burton tossing the ball to Caleb Smith, but the he couldn’t convert the layup that would have sent the game to overtime. Merrimack missed the front end of a 1-and-1, which gave Rider a chance to go the length of the floor in 2.9 seconds, but the inbound pass hit the rafters and went as a turnover. “Our guys didn’t hang our heads and battled back,” Baggett said. “Give Merrimack some credit. They took some tough late 3-pointers and made them.” Rider played the last 9:30 without Zion Cruz after he appeared to tweak his groin. “He’s one of your better players who has been in this position in the past with us,” Baggett said. “He played well at this place last year and you don’t have him.” Cole McCabe scored 12 points to lead the Broncs and Burton finished with 11. The maligned Rider big men — McCabe, Shemani Fuller and Mohamad Diallo —  combined for 27 points on 11-of-21 from the field and 18 rebounds. Easily their best outing to date. “We’ve been challenging them and they’ve been working hard in practice,” Baggett said. “I’m happy for those guys to do what they did. That’s only going to give those guys more confidence going forward.” What continued to fell the Broncs was poor 3-point shooting — they were 4-of-13 and got out-scored, 33-12, from beyond the arc — and 15 turnovers that Merrimack converted into 23 points. Rider countered that by winning on the glass, 41-19, and converting 16 second-chance points to the Warriors’ five. Andreas Marrero led all scorers with 23 points, Kevair Kennedy had 17 of his 19 in the first half and Tye Dorset added 15 for Merrimack. The Broncs return to action on Sunday against preseason favorite Quinnipiac. “It was a great team effort. It’s unfortunate that we lost,” Baggett said. “We missed some layups, we had some and-1s we should have made. We’ve been working on it, but it will come. Our guys will be fine. This team will be fine.” ...read more read less