Johnson, Harnum earn CollegeInsider.com honors

Rider senior guard Jerry Johnson and head coach Don Harnum each earned spots on CollegeInsider.com's 2005 Honor Roll.

Johnson, a 6-foot, 175-pound guard from Lancaster, PA, was named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference's Most Valuable Player for the 2004-05 season. Johnson averaged 18.8 points, 4.4 assists and 3.8 rebounds per contest. Additionally, Johnson finished third in the MAAC in made three-point field goals with 93. He ranks fourth in the MAAC in both scoring and assists. Johnson netted double-digit points in 24 of 27 contests this season.

In addition, Johnson scored 28 points in the Broncs' 113-106 overtime win over Niagara in both teams' season finale. In doing so, Johnson now has 2,002 career points to become only the second 2,000-point scorer (Darrick Suber, 2,219) in Rider history and only the 10th player in New Jersey Division I basketball to reach that milestone.

Harnum, in his eighth season as Rider's head coach, took a team that was predicted to finish fifth in the conference and guided it to a 17-10 mark and 13-5 record in MAAC play, which resulted in a share of the league's regular-season championship. He is 108-93 as a head coach at Rider, including 81-63 against MAAC rivals.

Rider enters the 2005 MAAC Tournament as the No. 2 seed (Niagara earned the top seed and the conference's double-bye into the semifinal round via tiebreaker) and will face either No. 7 seed Canisius or No. 8 seed Marist in a quarterfinal matchup March 5.