Here's the bad news for Rider: After being demolished 79-46 by the team picked 11th in the 12-team ACC, any talk that the Broncs are worthy of top 25 consideration is history.

The seven points the Broncs received in this week's AP poll? Certain to disappear, unless they can pull off a stunner Saturday in Lexington.

The national attention Rider was given after taking down Mississippi State? Nearly certain to disappear, at least until later in the year.

As Tommy Dempsey put it, "This will bring us back to earth."

Here, though, is the good news: Any talk that Rider was going to end up garnering consideration for an at-large NCAA bid was absurdly premature. Such a circumstance might have been possible eventually, but in order for that to have happened, Rider would have needed to do far more than win Thursday night and turn in a respectable performance Saturday. The Broncs would have needed to crush nearly everyone else on their non-conference schedule and probably lose no more than two games in the MAAC.

Even under those circumstances, an at-large bid would be far from a shoo-in.

With that in mind, appearing on more and more AP ballots in November and early December would have done absolutely nothing to move the Broncs closer to their only important goal: Winning the MAAC.

That means that no matter how loud that statement last Friday in Starkville -- and no matter how hard the thud last night in Charlottesville -- the Broncs' real season starts in December, when they'll host Marist in their MAAC opener.

That isn't to say these games have no value, or that a win Thursday would have been worthless. It isn't to say the Broncs gained nothing from their brief appearance in the national spotlight. It's simply to say that when you haven't been to the NCAA tournament in 15 years, your only important goal is getting there. And anyone who thought this team was going to lose in the MAAC tournament but sneak into the Field of 65 was delusional.

So what do we know about Rider through three games?

For one, they're as dangerous as anyone when they're knocking down 3s, but need to find ways to score when those shots aren't falling. They shot 62 percent from 3 against Mississippi State and 56 percent against Lehigh, but when they missed eight of their first 10 3s Thursday night, their offense fell apart.

Secondly, Ryan Thompson isn't the only player who can take over a game. The preseason MAAC Player of the Year hasn't led them in scoring in any of their three games. But there will be games when Mike Ringgold and Novar Gadson are quiet and Thompson needs to carry them. Thursday was one of those nights, and Thompson wasn't equal to the task, managing just nine points on 3-for-7 shooting.

Thirdly, one of their biggest problems last may not be fully remedied: Wild inconsistency.

Sure, every team in the country is inconsistent in some ways. In fact, it'd be hard to argue there's a team in college basketball history that hasn't had some inconsistencies.

But successful teams generally have a base level of performance that they're sure to deliver. They're capable of either winning games while playing poorly or at least avoiding embarrassing losses like the one Rider suffered last year at Canisius.

This Virginia loss is only one game. It might very well be the only real dud Rider turns in all year. But I was starting to develop an expectation that this team was good enough -- and consistent enough -- to never be embarrassed, no matter the opponent.

I thought a team that posted a double-digit road win against the 18th-ranked team in the country would show up every night, whether it be in Starkville, Charlottesville, Lexington or Poughkeepsie.

It turns out, I was wrong.

But that doesn't mean the Broncs will be embarrassed Saturday at Rupp Arena, or that they can be taken lightly by anyone. And it doesn't mean the trajectory of their season has been radically altered, even if, as Dempsey pointed out, walk-ons were knocking down shot after shot.

Rider plays at Virginia tomorrow night that poses an interesting test for the Broncs.

These aren't your father's Cavaliers or even your older brother's. They finished 10-18 last year -- their worst record since going 9-17 in 1966-67 -- and coach Dave Laito was fired as a result.

Still, it's a road game against an ACC opponent and an opportunity to head into Saturday's meeting with Kentucky unbeaten and confident.

Is it Cameron Indoor or the Dean Dome? Hardly. But although Rider's already-high expectations have gotten even higher over the last week, it's far from a shoo-in victory.

The game at a glance:

WHEN: Thursday, 7 p.m.

WHERE: John Paul Jones Arena

ON THE AIR: Radio: 107.7 FM, www.gobroncs.com (Daryl Fein, Steve Rudenstein)

RECORDS: Rider is 2-0; Virginia is 1-1

SERIES: First meeting

SCOUTING RIDER: The Broncs, 2-0 for just the second time since 1974-75, have used lights-out perimeter shooting to beat Mississippi State and Lehigh. Rider is 26-for-45 (58 percent) from 3-point range, and made a school-record 16 3s against Lehigh. Novar Gadson is averaging 20.5 points and nine rebounds, both team highs. Mike Ringgold (13.5, seven) is the reigning MAAC Player of the Week after scoring 21 points at Mississippi State. Ryan Thompson is averaging 17.5 points, five rebounds and 3.5 assists. Justin Robinson (14.5 points, team-best four assists) is 4-for-5 from 3-point range. Jermaine Jackson (1.5 points, 3.5 rebounds) has been plagued by foul trouble and inconsistency.

SCOUTING VIRGINIA: The Cavaliers, led by 2009 ACC Rookie of the Year Sylven Landesberg, are coming off a lackluster performance in a 66-49 loss at South Florida in which Landesberg was the only player to reach double figures in scoring. Landesberg, a 6-foot-6 guard averaging 18.5 points, poses Virginia’s biggest threat, but 6-4 guard Mustapha Farrakhan (10 points per game) and 6-8 forward Mike Scott (10.5 points, nine rebounds) are also averaging double figures. The Cavs’ other two starters are 6-4 junior guard Jeff Jones (8.5 points) and six-foot guard Sammy Zeglinski (eight).

SIDELINES: Rider received seven points in this week’s AP poll – the first time the Broncs have received votes in school history. … Tony Bennett, the 2007 national Coach of the Year while at Washington State, is in his first season at Virginia. … Tonight’s game is the first of four Rider will play as part of the Cancun Challenge. The Broncs play at Kentucky Saturday and will take on Florida A&M and either Sam Houston State or Oral Roberts next week in Cancun. … Farrakhan is the grandson of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. ... The Cavaliers are 13-0 against current MAAC members. Their last game against a MAAC team was a 98-59 thumping of Loyola during the 2005-06 season.

... What are everyone's expectations? Should Rider be expected to win? Would it be a big-time win if Rider is victorious?

When Rider couldn't miss from beyond the arc last night -- the Broncs hit their first five 3-point attempts to open a 19-3 lead -- you wouldn't have blamed fans for expecting a score along the lines of something we'd see if Kansas played NJIT.

That, of course, isn't what happened. The game was never that close -- the closest Lehigh got was within five points mid-way through the second half -- but it wasn't an all-out slaughter, either, and that was predictable. Not ALL of those 3s were going to fall, and since Rider depended on 3s for more than half of its scoring (48 out of 86 points by the end of the night), repeated misses allowed the Mountain Hawks to stick around.

So I had to ask Tommy Dempsey after the game: Are you at all concerned that your team is becoming overly reliant on 3s? His answer said a lot about how Rider has averaged 87 points in its first two games.

"I think what people don't always realize is that you have to take what the defense gives you," he said. "... It wasn't our gameplan as much as it was a product of how Lehigh decided to play."

How Lehigh decided to play -- sagging back to seal off lanes to the hoop -- is the same way Mississippi State decided to play.

Both times, Rider took advantage of wide open shots with great precision. The Broncs shot 62 percent (10-for-16) from 3 against MSU and 55 percent last night, when they hit a school record 16 3s on 29 attempts.

That's a two-game total of 26-for-45 -- a whopping 58 percent.

Perhaps most encouraging for Rider is the number of players who have shot the lights out. Four players last night -- Ryan Thompson, Justin Robinson, Novar Gadson and Pat Mansell -- hit at least three 3s, with Thompson's 5-for-9 performance leading the way.

What remains to be seen is when teams will start defending Rider differently, and how the Broncs will react.

This team considers its athleticism a major strength, especially when Thompson and Gadson are driving to the hoop and Mike Ringgold is beating people in the low post. That's a big reason why Mississippi State and Lehigh both game-planed the way they did.

I'll be very interested to see what kind of defensive game plan Virginia comes out with on Thursday.

Even if the Broncs continue to get wide-open looks, its fairly unlikely they'll shoot close to 60 percent for the rest of the season. But if they're going to, as the old cliche goes, live or die by the three, they've proven when the looks are there, they're far more likely to live than they are to die.

...

Five quick hits:

• A link to my game story in today's paper. Gotta hand it to Carl Johnson, who played three minutes but still manged to be featured on the back page.
  
• Too bad ESPN can't have these college hoops marathons EVERY night. I've got Saint Mary's-San Diego State on as I type this, and I'm tempted to make some coffee and stay up for Saint Peter's and Monmouth, whose 6 a.m. tip is only two hours away.
  
• Assuming enough people are up by 8 (or at least 9), the MAAC should get some good publicity today with Niagara playing Drexel at 8 a.m. and Siena playing Northeastern at noon as part of the marathon.
• If you haven't done so already, take the time to read Chris Elsberry's column on Anthony Johnson's return from the blood clot that sidelined him last year and could have taken his life.
  
• I've heard/read in a few places that Rutgers has clearly improved. If beating Marist by seven at home is evidence that you've improved, you have pretty low standards. And if the Knights are so "improved," how high will they finish in the Big East standings? If it's any lower than 12th, I'm not buying the "improvement" talk.
  

Meant to post this earlier, but never got around to it.

Below is the MAAC's release announcing that Rider's Mike Ringgold and Fairfield's Derek Needham were named Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week, respectively, for the first week of the year.

The MAAC also announced a multi-year deal with ESPN that will run through 2012.

MAAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK

MIKE RINGGOLD, RIDER
Junior, Forward, 6-7, 215, Philadelphia, Pa./Roman Catholic

Ringgold, a junior forward, scored 21 points and grabbed six rebounds to lead the Broncs to an 88-74 win at #18 Mississippi State. He also tallied one assist and one block while connecting on 52.6 percent of his attempts from the field (10-19). Rider led, 44-42, at the half, with 10 points from Ringgold.

MAAC ROOKIE OF THE WEEK

DEREK NEEDHAM, FAIRFIELD
Freshman, Guard, 5-11, 180, Dalton, Ill./De La Salle Institute

Needham, a freshman guard, led the team in scoring overall with 16.5 points per game and was tops with 10 assists and six steals over the two games. He tallied a team-high 19 points in the win against Fordham, and tallied 14 points in the Central Connecticut win despite playing only nine minutes in the second due to foul trouble. Defensively, he held A-10 preseason All-Rookie player Chris Gaston to six points after he tallied a double double in Fordham's season opener.

According to pollspeak.com, here's who voted for Rider in this week's top 25:

Two voters -- Dave Jones from the Harrisburg Patriot-News and Mark Berman from the Roanoke Times -- ranked the Broncs 24th, giving them two points apiece.

The other three points came from 25ht-place votes from John Feinstein of National Public Radio, Patrick Stevens of the Washington Times and Tim Hall from WCMC Radio in Raleigh, N.C.