The Rider Broncs play their home games in Alumni Gymnasium, one of college basketball's great bandboxes, and they carry one of the mid-major's most decorated traditions. Three NCAA tournament appearances, two retired jerseys in the rafters, an NBA lottery pick who is the program's patron saint — and one drought that defines everything about the present: the Broncs haven't danced since 1994, and the wait is now the longest in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Yes, Broncs with one c — Rider's official spelling, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The university sits in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, ten minutes from Trenton, and its basketball identity has always been scrappy, defensive-minded, and overachieving. In the last 20 years, Rider has compiled 321 wins — second-most in the MAAC behind only Iona's 373 — with 204 conference victories in that span. The tradition is real even when the trophy case has gaps.
The high-water marks came in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Rider was an NEC power. The Broncs reached the NCAA tournament three times: 1984 (a preliminary-round loss to Richmond, 65-89), 1993 (after winning the Northeast Conference, a first-round meeting with Kentucky) and 1994 (a first-round date with Connecticut). The 2007-08 team remains the program's modern masterpiece — 23 wins, a program best, a share of the MAAC regular-season crown, a trip to the MAAC title game, and a CBI berth, with nearly every home game sold out in advance.
That team belonged to Jason Thompson, the greatest player in program history. Thompson finished with 2,040 points and 1,171 rebounds — one of just 96 Division I players ever to compile 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds — plus program records for points and rebounds in a season, career blocks (235) and games played (122). He was the 2008 MAAC Player of the Year and a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, then became the 12th overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft by the Sacramento Kings. Rider retired his No. 1 in 2009, joining Darrick Suber's No. 4 — Suber remains the program's career scoring leader with 2,219 points. Alumni Gym's rafters tell the whole story in two jerseys.
The present belongs to Kevin Baggett — 'Baggs' — who is back for his 15th season as head coach in 2026-27 and his 21st year on the Rider staff, after serving as an assistant and associate head coach. Baggett is a two-time MAAC Coach of the Year (2015 and 2018), a finalist for three national coaching awards — the Ben Jobe, Joe B. Hall and Hugh Durham — and his players have earned 27 All-MAAC honors, 37 counting his assistant years. In his first season, he took a team picked seventh and finished second. His Broncs have always defended: his first squad led the MAAC in three-point field-goal defense.
But the Baggett era has a complicated ledger. In fourteen seasons, Rider has made one NIT appearance and zero NCAA tournaments — the program's drought is now 32 years. And last season was the bottom: 4-25 overall, last in the MAAC, a season that ended the careers and campus stays of nearly the entire rotation. The entire roster turned over this summer, and the backdrop is genuinely uneasy — the university's finances are described as precarious, the longtime athletics director retired in May, and the wrestling coach was elevated to run the department. This is a rebuild happening on a shaky foundation.
So the 2026-27 Broncs are almost entirely new faces. The roster lists senior guard Zion Cruz (Trenton, New Jersey), a local name for local fans; senior guard Devean Williams (Los Angeles); senior forwards Shemani Fuller (Bronx), Daniel Helterhoff (Cologne, Germany) and Mohamad Diallo (Decatur, Georgia), who at 6-foot-11 is the interior anchor; sophomore guard Flash Burton (Philadelphia), whose name is as electric as the expectations; sophomore forward Cole McCabe (Miami Beach) and Davis Bynum (O'Fallon, Illinois); and freshmen AB Coulibaly (Philadelphia), Kristupas Kepežinskas (Kaunas, Lithuania), Jamir McNeil (Cape May Court House), Xaviel Rodriguez (Bayamón, Puerto Rico) and Caleb Smith (Atlanta) — a genuinely international group for a program going global out of necessity.
There is continuity on the bench, though. Baggett completed his 2026-27 staff with a homecoming: Rider Athletics Hall of Famer Ryan Thompson '10 — three-time All-MAAC, 1,879 career points, a program-record 188 steals — returns as an assistant coach after five seasons at Rowan, where he helped the Profs reach three NCAA tournaments and back-to-back Sweet 16s. Thompson is the brother of Jason Thompson, the program's greatest player, which makes his return something of a family restoration project. Justin Pisapia joins as director of basketball operations.
The stakes this season are simple and stark. Rider is the only founding-era MAAC program without a tournament title in the Baggett era — and every year the drought gets heavier. In a one-bid league, the entire season condenses into three days in March, and the Broncs know that arithmetic better than anyone: they watched Jason Thompson's 23-win team lose in the MAAC title game in 2008 and never get back. The 2026-27 squad doesn't need to be remembered as the most talented Rider team. It needs to be the one that ends the wait.
At Alumni Gym, in Lawrenceville, the Broncs still believe the web of history matters — Thompson's jersey, Suber's record, the 23-win season, the packed little gym. Kevin Baggett has the wins, the awards and the loyalty. Now, in season fifteen, he needs the one thing that has always been missing: March.