A ‘lifetime contract’ for Steve Pikiell? Why Rutgers has seen enough
Skepticism is necessary when tossing around words like “lifetime.” But so is context. Both the floor and the ceiling of this program have been raised to unthinkable heights.
PISCATAWAY – Oskar Palmquist had only been in the U.S. for a month and a half, he told me last preseason, when he received a scholarship offer from Rutgers in fall 2019. The sharpshooting native of Sweden had moved to Orlando to attend a prep school, though he didn’t stay long after he visited Rutgers’ campus and Steve Pikiell gave him the opportunity to enroll early in January 2020.
Palmquist had played in just 35 games over three seasons before being subbed into the first half of Wednesday’s game against Minnesota. Rutgers clung to a 22-18 lead at the time and the offense hadn’t quite gotten into gear yet. Pikiell decided it was time for Palmquist to get another opportunity – and the forward’s first 3-pointer hit nothing but net.
There may be no better embodiment of the ethos Pikiell has instilled in Piscataway than Palmquist, a selfless teammate who’s waited his turn, served as a leader for others behind the scenes and cares about absolutely nothing else but winning.
“It’s just the culture,” Palmquist said Wednesday. “I kind of came here when the ball started rolling.”
Three hundred and twenty-eight days ago, Rutgers announced a four-year contract extension for men’s basketball coach Steve Pikiell that would last through the 2029-30 season. It reset his buyout to $15 million at the end of this season and kept it in eight-figures territory for the next two seasons. “What Steve Pikiell has accomplished here ‘On the Banks’ is nothing short of extraordinary,” athletic director Pat Hobbs said in a press release. “His leadership is driving success for our young men on the court, in the classroom and ultimately in life.”
And yet, NJ.com broke the news Tuesday that Pikiell is set to receive even more years at the end of that pact, creating a so-called lifetime contract. There’s a virtual board of governors meeting at 3 p.m. today to “act on a contract amendment for basketball coach.”
Rutgers fans on social media have not been unanimous. Many are stoked, seeing a deserved reward for a man who’s delivered on his promises. Some feel such a rare extension is coming too soon. My first-blush reaction fell into the latter category.
Skepticism is necessary when tossing around words like “lifetime.” But so is context.
It’s an extremely exclusive club, the active coaches in men’s college basketball who’ve been awarded the metaphorical lifetime deal. Kentucky’s John Calipari (2019), Kansas’ Bill Self (2021) and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo (2022) are the obvious ones. In January of last year, Auburn’s AD said he’d locked up Bruce Pearl “for life” after Louisville made goo-goo eyes at him. The other coaches in this sphere, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and Bob Huggins at West Virginia, have received enough contract extensions to be de facto lifetime appointments even if the schools haven’t applied that precise wording.
(How these agreements work vary from school to school. Self and Izzo signed “rolling” five-year contracts that will continue to add years every season until they hang up the whistle. Calipari was given a 10-year extension followed by a “paid ambassador” role for Kentucky whenever he retires, reports said at the time.)
Those Hall of Fame names have combined to win five championships and reach 26 Final Fours. Pikiell, it goes without saying, has not gotten close to any of this yet. In no way can his resume compare.
That said, here are the factors that make this reported extension digestible.
The first is age. Last year’s agreement to add four seasons laid most of the groundwork to get here. Pikiell will turn 62 early in the 2029-30 season. The “lifetime” moniker kicks in when coaches reach 65 and older. Izzo is already 68, Self 60, so the commitment there wasn’t as lengthy.
Another piece is staving off your competition. For everything Pikiell has said about loving Rutgers, the school wouldn’t be wise to ignore the potential of a deep-pocketed school like Notre Dame or even Texas, both of whom will have vacancies, to start sniffing around. Hobbs may believe that the $15 million buyout isn’t high enough to ward these schools off.
But what this boils down to is ceilings and floors.
Rutgers isn’t used to any of this. Pikiell didn’t inherit a noisy RAC or some four-star recruits. He took over the laughingstock of the Big Ten, a team that had gone 1-17 in conference play in 2015-16 while averaging an attendance of just 4,653 per game.
It took a few years of foundation-setting and recruiting to point Rutgers in a better direction. Fans and students began to believe. The 2017-18 season summary in Rutgers’ record book celebrates how the Scarlet Knights had multiple home sellouts in one season for the first time since 2011. Funny how standards and goals have a way of shifting over time.
Now, sellouts come easy. Now, it’s become about more than ending the NCAA Tournament drought. Rutgers has a high-end four-star in Gavin Griffiths coming aboard next year, its first five-star recruit signed up in Class of 2024 forward Ace Bailey and a legitimate chance at another five-star, Ron Harper Jr.’s brother Dylan Harper, who’s named Rutgers in his top five.
All of this is mere potential. None of it guarantees a thing. A Michigan State alum meeting Rutgers fans at Madison Square Garden this Saturday might tease them for what they think necessitates the proverbial Brinks truck. “Oh, you’re excited to make your third NCAA Tournament in a row? Quaint. How many Final Four banners have you hung again?”
But both the floor and the ceiling of this program have been raised to heights New Jerseyans couldn’t have dreamed of eight or 10 years ago.
On Wednesday I asked Pikiell, for all the recent regular-season achievements, what he sees as the program’s ceiling. The following answer might look counterproductive, but I actually appreciated what he said.
“I’m not a big ceiling guy,” he said. “You can’t look at ceilings in a league like this. These guys have been great and fun to coach, talented. We’re gonna see where this takes us this year.”
That’s all it is and all it needs to be at a place like Rutgers. Selfless basketball and caring about nothing more than winning the next one. The athletic department is ready to bet that that attitude will take the program even further than before.
Paul Mulcahy notched his 400th career assist in Wednesday’s 90-55 drubbing of last-place Minnesota. Like Palmquist (who exploded for a career-high 13 points Wednesday), the Bayonne native joined the program just a few years into Pikiell’s tenure, when something was brewing but the glory was still a long way off. I asked him if he’s sensed increasing excitement about Rutgers basketball, around campus or off it.
“Yeah, and I believed in this place when there wasn’t too much to believe in other than Coach Pikes and the coaches,” Mulcahy said. “I’m thankful for that decision but I’m glad that people are kind of seeing it now.”
………
Thanks for reading on this fine Thursday morning. If you’re a Rutgers fan, be ready for that official announcement to surface later this afternoon. I’ll be interested to see if it’s truly framed as a “lifetime” contract and how much the buyout of Pikiell’s contract might increase.
Time to clean the glass with a sampling of what else is going on around New Jersey:
My thoughts on the Pikiell situation above didn’t even wrap in Rutgers’ potential in the name, image and likeness space. RU collective Knights of the Raritan announced last week that it will be able to provide an NIL deal to every member of the football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball teams in 2023. The group hosted an interesting Twitter spaces conversation Monday night and just wrapped up its “Million Dollar Match” campaign Tuesday night, the results of which they’ll be announcing soon. I’ll continue to monitor this; with NIL still in its nascency it feels like it carries a lot of boom-or-bust potential.
I asked Minnesota coach Ben Johnson how Rutgers compares to other Big Ten opponents his team has faced, given how tightly packed the conference race is. Here’s a snippet of his thoughtful answer:
“This is a team that has had success across the board regardless of who they play in our conference. They’ve got to be considered as one of the top-echelon teams. Again, their brand and their style, the way they guard, their leadership that they have, the fact that they can have balanced scoring like they do, they share it. Anytime you play like that and you’re unselfish and you’ve got veteran players, you’re gonna give yourself a chance.”Seton Hall outlasted St. John’s 84-72 for its first win at Carnesecca Arena since 2010. The Pirates were in heavy foul trouble – KC Ndefo picked up three in the first half and Tyrese Samuel and Femi Odukale eventually fouled out – but the Pirates benefited from St. John’s missing 10 foul shots. Al-Amir Dawes and Kadary Richmond helped swing the game from a 57-53 deficit to a 71-61 lead; Dawes (21 points) made four triples and Richmond went for 15 points, a career-best 13 rebounds and seven assists. The Johnnies aren’t good, but it’s rare to see this Seton Hall team grind through adversity late in a game and come out winners.
Fun times in Mercer County tomorrow. Rider will host Saint Peter’s and Princeton will welcome Cornell, both at 7 p.m. The former is your standard twice-a-year battle between New Jersey MAAC rivals, the latter a showdown between the two co-leaders of the Ivy. Excuse me, I have to go set up two screens.