Monmouth basketball tops Manhattan, 77-71; 3 takeaways as Xander Rice hits for 24
WEST LONG BRANCH – There were plenty of excuses Monmouth could have used on this day. The sleepy atmosphere inside OceanFirst Bank Center for Thursday afternoon matinee four days before Christmas. The sub-.500 record Manhattan came in with, and the upcoming clash with No. 7 Oklahoma on New Year’s Day.
But the Hawks opted for none of them.
Instead, they rallied from an eight point first-half deficit, which was still three points at halftime, to overcome the Jaspers with a defense-led second-half rally, emerging with a 77-71 victory.
“I never liked this game on (December) 21st, 22nd,” Monmouth coach King Rice said. “All the students are gone, all their friends are gone, half their mind is gone because they’re ready to go home - but I told my guys it’s a credit to who they are.
"It’s a credit to these kids to just grind out a win, and I’m not a coach that says grind and grind and grind. But today we had to dig deep and grind out a win against an undermanned Manhattan team and we’re just fortunate to get this one done, and now we get to have Christmas.”
Monmouth (7-5) has now equaled its win total from a year ago, when it opened the season 1-20.
This marks the ninth time as a Division 1 program Monmouth will have a winning record in non-conference play heading into the game with the Sooners, before opening CAA play when they host Towson on Jan. 4. The previous eight teams won an average of 20.8 games, but the 2003-04 team is the only one to make the NCAA Tournament.
It’s the latest sign of what might be possible for the Hawks.
Leading the way was graduate guard Xander Rice with 24 points, while graduate center Nikita Konstantynovskyi had a double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds, as did sophomore guard Jack Collins with 12 points and 13 rebounds.
"It doesn't matter who I’m playing against, if it’s a big guy, small guy, I still attack. That's the mindset. I do my thing," said Konstantynovskyi.
Shaquil Bender led Manhattan (4-6) with 17 points.
After Monmouth built a 58-52 lead, Manhattan made one final run, getting to withing 60-57 on a 3-pointers by Perry Cowan with 5:10 to play. But the Hawks responded with six straight point, beginning with a score inside by Collins after an offensive re bound, a short baseline jumper by Jakari Spence and a driving layup in transition by Konstantynovskyi to push the lead back to 66-57 with 3:41 left.
Down 37-34 at the halftime, Monmouth got back to even at 40-all after a score by Collins inside, before the Manasquan native tied the game on a driving layup off a feed from Spence with 17 minutes to play. It was the surge in defensive intensity that sparked the rally, and from there it was Rice triple giving Monmouth a lead it would never relinquish.
More: Monmouth basketball overpowers Rider: 3 takeaways from 77-71 win
It was a disjointed opening as both teams struggled to find a rhythm early on. Manhattan jumped out to a 13-8 lead on a Bender drive. Monmouth was simply never able to get enough defensive stops in the first half to get all the way back, pulling within a point at 35-35 on a Collins 3-pointer in the final minute.
But the difference was nine Monmouth turnovers in the first half that resulted in 13 points for Manhattan, as the Jaspers went into halftime with a 37-34 lead.
Here are three takeaways from Monmouth's win over Manhattan:
1. Xander Rice continues torrid pace
It was Xander Rice’s eighth game of the season scoring 20 points or more, upping his average to 19.3 points-per-game.
And what's stood out is his ability to score consistently even though opposing defenses are doing everything they can to stop him.
“They’re trying to throw a lot of different defenses at me, trying to switch things up and I think what they are trying to do is just make things more difficult for me,” Rice said. “Because I feel like if I am comfortable and know the reads I’m looking for off ball screens the game kind of slows down and becomes easy, so I think they’re just trying speed me up."
2. Paint presence growing
Konstantynovskyi, a 6-10 Ukrainian, is averaging 19 points and 11.5 rebounds over the past two games, and is a rebound short of having three double-doubles in the last four games. And with 6-9 Klemen Vuga’s minutes severely limited by a back injury, his presence – he transferred from Tulsa – has been critical.
“He can really shoot, all the way to the 3-point line, but we need him to go roll inside get busy,” Rice said. “Next year show he can shoot like Luka, but right now we need you do this. But he is a European big man that can play away from the basket, too. We need him to play at the rim and he has done and incredible job doing that.
“Do you expect the kid to get 21 points and 14 (rebounds) or 17 and 13? Well, he is a graduate so he has been through some things. He had those numbers in junior college and then he didn’t get to play last year (due to injury) so I think we are going to see more night like this from him. This is his 12th game in two years.”
3. Defense is the difference
Monmouth came out with a different level of defensive pressure in the second half, getting eight stops on Manhattan’s first nine possessions of the half to grab the lead.
“It was kind of surprising because the last two days all we talked about was defense and rebounding,” King Rice said. “We got out pads so everybody starts going to rebound and just guard your man and challenge yourself.
“Manhattan controlled the tempo in the first half the whole way and the coaches were all ‘we got to pressure more,’ and we finally got them going a little bit on the defensive end and that was the difference in the game.”
Monmouth dominated on the glass, holding a 47-34 edge in rebounding.
All-Shore backcourt has Monmouth basketball rising. How high can Hawks fly?
WEST LONG BRANCH – Xander Rice remembers playing against Jakari Spence in fifth and sixth grade in the Mid Monmouth League. Jack Collins, a few years younger, knew of them from playing at places like the HoopGroup in Neptune while growing up, with his Manasquan High School team playing Spence and Toms River North a few times.
Now this trio of Jersey Shore natives have come together to form the starting backcourt a much-improved Monmouth University team.
Their on-court chemistry has been a key component in the turnaround, with Monmouth (6-5) looking to equal its win total from last season with a victory against Manhattan at OceanFirst Bank Center Thursday (2 p.m.; SNY/FloSports.com).
The three are combining to score 35.9 points-per-game, along with 8.1 assists and 11.4 rebounds.
“It’s really cool,” said Rice, a graduate transfer guard from Bucknell and son of Monmouth head coach King Rice. “I think a lot of the shared experiences we had growing up around here, that’s probably helped us mesh together in the backcourt just because we went through a lot of the same stuff all throughout high school and earlier.”
Now Xander Rice is averaging 18.9 points, third best in the Coastal Athletic Association, and Collins, named to the CAA All-Rookie team last season, is second on the team at 11.2 ppg. and 6.0 rebounds. And Spence, a senior walk-on with a year of eligibility remaining, is averaging 5.5 points and leads the team in steals, while hitting a recent game-winning buzzer-beater against Northern Illinois.
“Jakari is getting a scholarship next year,” King Rice said. “He’s a real guy for us and we’re lucky that we have him. He basically saved us last year. Being a kid that ended up starting for a lot of the season and really made our team better.
“They’ve really played well together. You have to give Xander some credit on how he came in the door. He came a month early. He just became friends with them, showed them his work ethic, how much this means to him. He was like, ‘guys, let’s do this for us.’ He’s a leader and those guys follow him.”
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Monmouth has a history with Shore Conference guards over the years. Red Bank’s Mustafa Barksdale (1993-97) and CBA’s Jason Krayl (2000-04) and Chris Kenny (2002-06) all topped 1,000 points. Several area players have had an impact during Rice’s 13 seasons, including CBA’s Louie Pillari and Manchester’s Shavar Reynolds, who transferred from Seton Hall to help the Hawks win 21 games in 2021-22.
But to have the team’s success so closely tied to players from Monmouth and Ocean counties is unheard of, putting a spotlight on the level of talent the area is producing.
“That’s a big thing for me. I like to represent my town a lot, being from Manasquan, being where I’m from, and I know these guys are like that, too,” Collins said. “So representing my town and the Shore is a big thing.”
In all, seven players on the Monmouth roster, including walk-ons, are local products.
“It was not the plan to do it that way but it’s really cool,” King Rice said. “We live on the Shore. and when we find kids we think can enhance our program, we try to get them.”
Coaching with a heavy heart
King Rice was a North Carolina teammate of former Tar Heels’ big man Eric Montross, who died of cancer this week at age 52. Montross, who played eight seasons in the NBA, played alongside Rice during the 1990-91 season, while Monmouth assistant coach Brian Reese played with Montross on the Tar Heels’ 1993 national championship team.
“I remember when he was just a young dude,” Rice said. “I was roommates with him my senior year when we played in Orlando in a Christmas Tournament, and he was struggling a little bit. And I just talked to him about what it meant to be as big-time of a player as he was at North Carolina. He was just this big kid, and then he became a man and he was one of the nicest people. I was there when he met his wife. Just too young for that to happen."
Rice lost another close friend this week, driving to his hometown of Binghamton, New York, on Sunday to spend time with a friend and former high school teammate, Randy Wimberly, who passed away Tuesday.
More on Manhattan
Manhattan is in its first season under coach John Gallagher, with Steve Masiello, a close friend of Rice’s, fired prior to the start of the 2022-23 season. Monmouth’s only win during a 1-20 start last season was at Manhattan.
“They run some really, really good stuff,” Rice said. “They will do the zones Steve did, just a little different, They do a 1-1-3, go 1-3-1, they’re just throwing different defenses at you just to keep you off balance. And that is a good plan because a lot of teams don’t change defenses a lot so you get used to how people play.”
Manhattan comes in with a 4-5 record, having lost at home to FDU, 76-71, last Friday in their last game.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth basketball tops Manhattan, 77-71, as Xander Rice hits for 24
