Column: Ask Tom Izzo. Rutgers’ veterans have put the Big Ten on notice.
Rutgers’ experience and resilience powered them to the latest statement victory of Pikiell’s tenure and solidified the group as a force in the Big Ten.
NEW YORK – Red and green lighting took turns adorning the famous ceiling inside Madison Square Garden, as if a Christmas show had pulled into town. Down below, neither team had much of a holiday during their low-scoring first half, especially not Rutgers.
The Scarlet Knights, whose offense had shown signs of progress in recent games, scored a miserable 19 points on 33 possessions (.576 per possession). They shot just 7-of-29 and had four shots blocked, three of them layups. Only four players found the scoresheet, and their early leading scorer, Mawot Mag (seven points), was fouled hard, hit his knee on the floor and left for the rest of the day.
The crowd at this de facto home game, leaning more than 80 percent Rutgers but certainly not filled like the RAC, had been quieted a bit. But the mood in the Scarlet Knights’ locker room was not somber.
“This group has been resilient,” Steve Pikiell said. “I told them, Paul’s been there, we’ve been there a million times. Caleb’s been there. Cliff. Aundre Hyatt. I think they were down for Mawot, when they found out he wasn’t gonna play again. But they rallied.”
They rallied behind the veterans in their group, primarily senior Paul Mulcahy and fifth-year Caleb McConnell, who’d been held scoreless in the first half but combined for 26 after the break. McConnell added three of his four steals in the second, Cliff Omoruyi tacked on an easy double-double and Rutgers pulled out a 61-55 victory over the most accomplished coach in their conference.
Tom Izzo is never shy to praise opposing players and coaches when he feels it’s due. But the Michigan State legend had a point to make. Amid the usual postgame handshakes, he located Mulcahy and McConnell for a compliment that transcended your average “nice work out there.”
“I told Mulcahy and McConnell after the game they’ve been great for the Big Ten,” Izzo said. “They really have. I actually hope I never see them again but other than that, I really appreciate how they play, how tough they are and just the demeanor about them.”
Holding court with the media afterwards, Izzo wasn’t done.
“I think people, especially at Michigan State, will think ‘Well, you lost to Rutgers.’ Rutgers, in my humble opinion, is the second-best team in this league right now,” Izzo said. “They’re not as good as Purdue, and they beat Purdue, so you figure that out. I do think that they’re a very good team. They’re not shooting it quite as well from the perimeter as maybe (Pikiell) needs to to really take another step, to be honest with you. Other than that, defense travels.”
Every team not named Purdue has been beaten several times over, thrashed around in the ugly manner that Big Ten basketball provides. That includes Rutgers, which couldn’t stop Iowa in two tries and lost by 13 in East Lansing two-plus weeks ago.
Yet Rutgers’ experience and resilience powered them to the latest statement victory of Pikiell’s tenure and solidified the group as a force in the Big Ten, on no less than the biggest stage in basketball.
It’s deliciously ironic to me how negative much of the sentiment about the Big Ten Super Saturday game was among Rutgers faithful. Message boards carried cries of conspiracy (that’s what message boards are there for), given it was the third time Rutgers was picked for the game and the second time it’s been marked the home team, thereby yielding a game in Piscataway. One anonymous poster even posited that Izzo told the league to do it, which is not how any of this works.
The piece I will agree is unfair is that the game still counted as a home game for Rutgers for the purposes of NET ranking, making the win less valuable than a neutral-site win in their formula. But these are such first-world problems. Twelve or fifteen years ago, with the state the program was in, Rutgers wouldn’t have sniffed an invite to Madison Square Garden outside of the Big East Tournament.
Being a train ride away from campus, it was no problem for students and alumni to pour out for this contest. “It was scarlet all over,” Mulcahy said.
Rutgers stormed back in the second half not only with its typical fortitude, but with key adjustments. After a 1-for-10 showing from 3-point range in the first half, they largely forgot about the arc and set up Mulcahy to drive down the lane, starting with the opening possession of the second. He’d succeed there twice more under three minutes to go, the pivotal stretch of the game that transformed a tight game into a seven-point Rutgers lead.
“That was my teammates telling me to attack,” Mulcahy said. “Cliff was telling me to attack. Did an incredible job. Sprint screens. Did all the little things to help me get downhill. Guys were on their X and my teammates were giving me confidence and vice versa. I have utmost confidence in whoever I give the ball to.”
The contributions extended to freshman Derek Simpson. He could have gotten nervous after being whistled consecutive fouls eight seconds apart, at least one of which was a bad call. Rutgers wasn’t capitalizing on most of the Spartans’ turnovers until Simpson got free to knock down a jumper that cut it to 40-39, setting up McConnell’s go-ahead three soon after.
“I told him and Antwone (Woolfolk), it’s time for them to step up tonight,” McConnell said. “They’re freshmen. Sometimes Derek doesn’t play like a freshman and we know that, and we have all the confidence in Derek. Coach has all the confidence in Derek. We know that he was ready for this moment. It wasn’t nothing new that I haven’t seen before. I’ve seen Derek do that plenty of times.”
The freshmen can only go as far as the veterans guide them, and the leadership on this roster is off the charts. After the Scarlet Knights’ 90-55 win over Minnesota on Wednesday, I was talking with Mulcahy about how the program’s culture has been built.
“We got great leaders. It’s not just me and Caleb,” he said. “Jalen Miller is an incredible leader that no one talks about that way. Oskar is freaking awesome as a leader. Everyone knows their role and is doing really well in their role.
“Jalen, every day he’s bringing guys together. He’s communicating, he’s a voice. Dudes respect him because he works so hard. Same thing about Oskar.”
It’s no small thing for this program to be told it belongs in the Big Ten. It was a league doormat when Pikiell arrived. But it’s another thing for the longest-tenured coach in the conference to say it.
Pikiell, as you’d expect, was grateful for the compliment, humbly spread the praise to each of his assistant coaches by name and declined to revel in the win for more than “a couple seconds.”
“It’s really become a community and a university,” he said. “Everyone has to come together. You don’t (just) build programs. Michigan State’s been great for a long time. They’ve had all that alignment. We’re doing that now and it really helps us.”
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Hello, and happy Sunday. I’m grateful to have made it out to New York to cover this game for Field Level Media (recap here) along with the newsletter. Hope you enjoyed this read, which is likely to be my last look at Rutgers for a while. Coming up next, I’m turning my attention to Seton Hall’s home game against Creighton and its subsequent visit to Villanova, this Wednesday and Saturday.
Time for a quick rundown of what else has been happening in New Jersey hoops:
The Princeton men and women beat the Columbia men and women by a combined 40 points on Saturday. Let’s start with the women, who went to New York to exact their revenge for losing to the talented Lions in Jadwin last month. In the 74-56 win, woman of many talents Ellie Mitchell went for nine points, 17(!) rebounds, two blocks and two steals, while the other four starters all scored in double figures. Kaitlyn Chen wasn’t far off from a double-double. Most intriguing about the season split: Princeton, Columbia and Harvard are tied atop the Ivy standings at 7-2, with Penn 6-3 and Yale 5-4. It will be an unbelievably tight race to Ivy Madness, but Princeton (and the other co-leaders) control their destiny.
You know who else is 7-2 in the Ivy? You know who else controls their own destiny? The Princeton men, after completing a season sweep of Cornell on Friday and who dominated the first half of Saturday’s 88-66 win over Columbia. Blake Peters made five 3-pointers off the bench for the second straight game in the Big Red win; he’s a valuable depth scoring option in this rotation now. Cornell tripped up again in a loss to Penn, so the Ivy standings are shaping out in fascinating fashion:
Princeton 7-2; Yale 6-3; Cornell, Penn, Brown 5-4; Dartmouth 4-5; Harvard 3-6; Columbia 1-8
The game I have circled for obvious reasons is Yale at Princeton, Feb. 18, but the Tigers can’t afford to look past Dartmouth and Brown.Rider enters today’s game at Manhattan on a six-game winning streak and tied for first place in the MAAC. The Broncs didn’t need a comeback sprint for once when they beat Saint Peter’s on Friday, 82-61. This new iteration of the Peacocks has had to start from square one and needs little further probing. The Broncs, though, are capitalizing on their roster experience and getting greater contributions from guys like Allen Powell (10.6 points per game and 42.1% 3-point shooting over his past five) and Adetokunbo Bakare (11 points in 11 minutes against the Peacocks).