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December 28, 2006
Sizing Up the Broncs
by
JOHN HAYNSWORTH
Writer
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Head Coach: Tommy Dempsey
Tommy Dempsey is 11 games (7-4, 1-1) into his second season at the helm of the Broncs and his first without the “interim” label. His status was resolved in April of 2006 when he was officially named the head coach at Rider. Dempsey had previously been an assistant on Don Harnum’s staff since 2003-04 before Harnum was ultimately promoted to his current director of athletics position following the 2004-05 season.
 “I am very honored to be the next head basketball coach at Rider University,” Dempsey said in April. “I feel very fortunate and I am so thankful that Rider President Mordechai Rozanski and our athletic director, Don Harnum, feel comfortable enough to allow me to move this program forward. I will work tirelessly to reward their decision to name me as the next head coach in a program with such great tradition.”
At age 32, Dempsey is the third youngest head coach in the Division I ranks behind Indiana University Purdue University at Fort Wayne’s Dane Fife (25) and Virginia Commonwealth’s Jeff Capel (30). This is his third stint as a college head coach with his previous two coming at the NJCAA level where he compiled an 88-12 record in three total seasons and led both programs to the Final Four of their respective divisions.
Dempsey most recently took Lackawanna College to the Division II National Title Game in 2003. He took a team that was not ranked in the preseason top 40 and finished as the national runner-up with a school-record 33 wins. For his efforts, Dempsey earned the Region 19 and District 9 Coach of the Year honors.
Dempsey also took Keystone College to the 2002 Division III Final Four with another school-record 29 wins. He initially took over for a team that finished 11-12 in 1999-2000 and went 55-8 over the next two seasons.
This year, Dempsey is leading a Rider team that is easily more experienced with more depth than his first Broncs squad, which consisted of four freshmen and a sophomore among the team’s top eight contributors.
“We've got a hungry group and last season left a bitter taste in our mouths,” Dempsey said before the season began. “I think we are going to take a big step forward. We've got a really good group of sophomores and juniors.”
Starter: Jason Thompson (forward)
 Junior forward Jason Thompson has developed into quite the match-up problem for opponents since arriving on Rider’s campus three seasons ago. For starters, he has grown three inches, currently standing at 6-foot-10, while adding muscle to his now 245-pound frame. He is extremely athletic and gifted for his size and position and is effective as a scorer either posting up his opponents or taking them off the dribble and driving the basket.
“Not only is he more skilled than many of his opponents, he's bigger than them,” Dempsey said of Thompson. “I don't see any reason to believe that he is not going to be a player-of-the-year candidate the next two years. He is very driven to be the best player in the league.”
Thompson enters Thursday’s action with an average of 20.3 points on 54.2% shooting from the field and 9.6 rebounds in just over 34 minutes per game. He has six double-doubles this season and 19 for his career at Rider. Thompson also has 31 assists to his credit this season, which ranks as second best among the Broncs, and is regarded as the type of player who makes his teammates around him better. Defensively, he has posted a team-high 21 blocks to go with eight steals.
Bench: Lamar Johnson (guard)
Rider really only utilizes a seven-man rotation, and Lamar Johnson has been the Broncs’ most valuable bench asset this season. The 6-foot-3, 180-pound sophomore guard is still trying to find some of the consistency he possessed in high school, which helped him finish as Scranton High School’s career leader in points (1,572), assists (347) and three-point field goals (201).
“(Johnson) is very good jump shooter who was a prolific high school scorer and he got to the point last year where he needed to learn to score at the Division I level,” Dempsey said.
His numbers are down, slightly, from a season ago when he averaged 5.7 points and 2.0 rebounds as a freshman. Through eleven games this year, he is averaging a bench-high 4.9 points to go with 1.9 rebounds in just over 19 minutes of action per outing. His season-high is a 16-point, 4-rebound performance against Binghamton University earlier this month.
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