Much-Traveled PG Lindsey Makes Rider Next Stop

The Rider men's basketball program will replace one-year transfer senior guard Jeff Jones (formerly at Virginia) with another potential impact transfer next season.

Former St. John's point guard Nurideen Lindsey will be joining the Broncs, according to Rider coach Tommy Dempsey, who confirmed the transfer earlier this week after receiving the requisite paperwork.

The 6-foot-3 Nurideen averaged 11.8 points and 2.9 assists in nine games for St. John's this year, before leaving the team to seek another school He originally indicated that he would transfer to Arkansas, before optig instead for Rider. Prior to turning up at St. John's he played a year at Redlands CC in Oklahoma where he averaged 22.3 points per game.

Nurideen, according to traditional transfer rules, would become eligible for the 2012-13 season's second semester and have one-and-a-half seasons of eligibility remaining. However, internet sources indicate that the player will seek to obtain a waiver in order to be eligible at the start of next season.

Lindsey has a history of complicated family issues, including the murder of a younger brother, and there is some thought that he may be able to obtain a waiver to become eligible at the start of the 2012-13 season.

Lindsey was a highly touted recruit as a standout at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, scoring at a pace that threatened Wilt Chamberlain's records at that school.

Lindsey, though, admitted that academic apathy and homesickness derailed his career as he bailed out of a Connecticut prep school in the fall of 2008 without ever playing there and he went without playing in an organized setting for two seasons.

Lindsey averaged closer to 38 points per game as a high school junior and initially made a verbal commitment to play at La Salle.

Leaving prep school though, meant that Lindsey would never play at La Salle, whose coach John Giannini remains one of the player's staunchest supporters.

Giannini, in a 2010 story that appeared in the New York Times, said Lindsey has traces of Allen Iverson's game and mental makeup.

If you were going to pick one player with toughness and tenacity whose emotions can get the best of them and who has the supreme confidence and quickness to score, that's the best comparison, Giannini said in the article.

As for Lindsey's character, Giannini said that if people looked past the player's tattoos, they would find someone with the intelligence of an Ivy League philosopher.

The Broncs surely will welcome the infusion of scoring ability Lindsey appears capable of eventually providing. The program, after this season, will lose Jones (12.8 points per game), along with forwards Brandon Penn (12.9) and Novar Gadson (9.2).