Mouton provides Broncs' spark

Every basketball player's psyche is different.

For some, all they need is a slap on the rear end and a reassurance from coaches that they have what it takes to succeed. For others, it takes some adversity or criticism for them to turn their play up a notch.

Rider's Terrance Mouton fits into the latter category, and that could spell trouble for Penn when his Broncs come to the Palestra tonight.

The 5-foot-11 sophomore guard from Lafayette, La., began the year looking to build off of a solid rookie season, during which he averaged 4.7 points per game and seemed poised to become one of Rider's star players.

Mouton was rewarded with a starting position. But after a cold shooting start to the season, Broncs coach Don Harnum sent him back to the bench.

He has been a different player ever since.

"He was in the starting lineup, but it just didn't seem to be the right combo for us," Harnum said. "He wasn't shooting the ball well, and we needed to shake it up."

Mouton was shooting just 23.8 percent from the field for the season following a 1-for-11 outing against Hartford Dec. 29. After the game, Harnum anointed Mouton his new sixth man.

Some players go into a tailspin when they lose a starting position. Mouton used it as motivation to turn his season around.

"When you take a player out of the starting lineup, you run the risk that he might go into the tank," Harnum said. "But [Mouton] has responded well, and that's a good sign."

Apparently Harnum is the master of the understatement.

Mouton has come off the bench to lead the Broncs to victories in their last two games against conference foes Saint Peter's and Loyola-Md.

Against the Peacocks, Mouton scored 18 points on 5-for-6 shooting in a 95-86 win. He sealed the victory by hitting all six of his free-throws down the stretch.

In Rider's last game against the Greyhounds, Mouton did even better. He single-handedly carried the Broncs to victory.

Trailing 65-53 with just 3:38 left, Mouton scored 14 of the game's final 22 points, as Rider closed out the game on a 19-3 run to win 75-71. Mouton's 20 points led all scorers, and his team now sits in the driver's seat of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with a 4-0 record.

The Rider program expected this type of success for Mouton when it recruited him out of Louisiana. The Lawrenceville, N.J., school recruits most of its players from the mid-Atlantic region, but after one of Harnum's assistants saw him in an Amateur Athletic Union game in Houston, the program moved quickly to persuade him to come to the East Coast.

Mouton just wanted theopportunity to join a goodbasketball program.

"Rider was a good fit," Mouton said. "I like the atmosphere. I like the program." Moving to another part of the country "wasn't that big of an adjustment."

If Mouton needed any guidance about how to choose a good program, he could ask his cousin Brandon Mouton, a wingman and defensive specialist who graduated from Texas last year.

Brandon was a vital cog in the Longhorns' run to the Final Four two years ago. He has also been crucial to his cousin'sdevelopment as a basketballplayer.

"We went to the same high school," Terrance Mouton said about his cousin. "He was a senior when I was a freshman. He would give me pointers. We would play one-on-one all the time."

But Terrance is quick to point out that he is a different player than Brandon.

"He's a small forward. I'm more of a point guard. I can be a ball-handler."

Harnum, for his part, scoffed at the notion that Terrance was a more attractive recruit because of Brandon's successes.

"That's a bad way to recruit," Harnum said. "You gotta see something in the kid. When I saw Terrance, I knew in 10minutes."

It took Mouton much longer than 10 minutes to pick up the nuances of the college game. But if the last two games are any indication, he has got it down now.

And once a player of Mouton's ability masters the mental aspects of the game, the sky is the limit.

Unfortunately for the Quakers, that stage has arrived just in time for the Broncs' visit to Philadelphia.

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