Dean Reiber makes the most of limited minutes for Rutgers
The Rutgers sophomore has discovered a knack for giving his team a spark off the bench – and has moved up in the rotation accordingly.
PISCATAWAY – Dean Reiber’s moment was coming.
Everyone around him in the Rutgers men’s basketball program lauds how hard Reiber works. He’s part of the Scarlet Knights’ second unit, or as he referred to them Saturday evening, “the practice squad.” At practice he and his fellow reserves go up against the Red Team – the starters – battling Ron Harper Jr. and Geo Baker and Cliff Omoruyi, iron sharpening iron.
Coach Steve Pikiell trusted some of those reserves at a pivotal point of Rutgers’ 84-63 blowout of then-No. 13 Michigan State. The game was still competitive with 14 minutes to go when Reiber, Mawot Mag and Jalen Miller subbed in for Harper, Baker and Omoruyi. Michigan State cut its deficit to 50-47 moments later.
But the three reserves, combined with Paul Mulcahy and Caleb McConnell, helped run off the next 11 points. Reiber hit his second 3-pointer of the game, which forced Tom Izzo to call timeout in the middle of the run. It didn’t help matters for the Spartans. Reiber pulled off a back-door pass to assist Mulcahy on a layup.
Box scores never tell the whole story of a game, but Reiber’s line jumps off the page (or the screen) for a Division I reserve averaging 3.0 points a game: 12 points, 5-of-6 shooting, two assists – in 11 minutes.
“He’ll be knocking on my door tomorrow (asking) to play more minutes, right Dean?” Pikiell quipped afterwards.
Shouldn’t he be?
After a quiet freshman season, Reiber is finding ways to rise to the occasion during this Big Ten schedule that seems to simultaneously test the Scarlet Knights and inspire them. He’s discovered a knack for coming off the bench during the first 15 minutes of a game to give Rutgers a spark on offense, moving ahead of fellow forward Ralph Gonzales-Agee in the rotation.
Reiber attributes his growth to the mental side of preparation.
“It’s honestly more of a mental thing for me, I would say,” he said. “Just being more focused, more locked in all the time. Being more in the moment. Stuff like that helps a lot actually with basketball.”
Saturday marked Reiber’s second career high in a month. On Jan. 8 against Nebraska, he took the floor and posted his first double-digit game, scoring 10 points with four boards and 2-for-2 shooting from the arc.
Reiber, who stands 6-foot-10, told me that afternoon that his 3-point shot has always been a part of his game, but his freshman year was a struggle as he adjusted to the longer distance.
“I’ve been preparing for this moment,” he added that day. “Coach always says, ‘Be ready for opportunities that come up.’ Cliff got in foul trouble and I think I was ready for this opportunity.”
Reiber hasn’t looked back since. Not every game has been a wonder – there was the win at Maryland where he picked up three fouls over just eight minutes – but his coach and teammates have continued to give him room to carve out his role.
“Every game you see him, his athleticism, and I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet – he’s as athletic as we have,” Pikiell said. “He can finish above the rim. He can pass the ball, with a great back-door pass to Paul. He can do a lot of things. You’re starting to see it now. He’s getting quality minutes in a really good league. We’re real pleased with his development, but he works, he works. We’ve been seeing it come.”
Sitting next to Reiber during postgame interviews, Mulcahy hyped his teammate for his minutes as a stretch four, and the readiness that drips off him when he dunks a ball during pre-game layup lines. But Mulcahy still had to do a double take when Pikiell paired Reiber, Mag and the freshman Miller with himself and McConnell when Rutgers was up by just three.
Everyone played their roles as needed. McConnell and Mag are Rutgers’ best defenders; Mulcahy said Miller belongs in that category as well. McConnell and Miller got in transition during the 11-0 run for a steal and basket. And Reiber and Mulcahy shone together.
“I do remember sitting down, I’m like, ‘This is an odd lineup,’” Mulcahy said. “As you can see, we’re deep. It was good to get going with those guys.”
There aren’t many opportunities to see how deep Rutgers truly is. Pikiell gives his bench players an average of 25.4 minutes per game, per KenPom.com’s calculations, which ranks 301st in Division I. When you have stellar senior leaders like Harper and Baker to rely upon, it’s understandable.
With four more ranked teams in a row lying ahead on the Scarlet Knights’ schedule, they’ll need more than the starting five to produce quality minutes — and Reiber will have more chances to get on the floor and flex his game.
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Thanks for reading. I’m scheduled to return to the building formerly known as the RAC Wednesday for Rutgers-Ohio State, so consider this Rutgers week here at Guarden State. Time to clean the glass with a few quick hits and my updated league power rankings:
Reiber was also the recipient of a sweet, sweet pass by Mulcahy in the first half. From the high post, Mulcahy found Reiber on the wing with a no-look, behind-the-back pass and Reiber knocked down the triple. “I saw I had two guys. (Marcus) Bingham was still in front of me,” Mulcahy told me. “And Dean can really shoot, he’s got good touch, he stretched it out. I didn’t do it just to do it – that’s the only way I could have gotten it there. Happy he made it.”
Writing this hours before the AP poll is released every Monday puts me in a weird pickle regarding how to cover it. Usually I’m making educated guesses. This week, there will undoubtedly be some change near the bottom. No. 20 Iowa State went 0-2 last week, No. 25 LSU went 0-2 and No. 21 Xavier lost to DePaul. Alabama was next in line under “others receiving votes,” but it lost to Auburn and Kentucky – surely no normal week, but still, is it right to move them in after two losses? Expect mid-majors Murray State and perhaps Saint Mary’s to make their season debuts in the poll. I’m not a voter, but I would give Arkansas and Notre Dame looks for rankings, too, and I have a feeling Seton Hall will start receiving a couple of votes again.
League power rankings
Big Ten
1. Illinois
2. Purdue
3. Wisconsin
4. Michigan State
5. Ohio State
6. Indiana
7. Rutgers
8. Michigan
9. Iowa
10. Penn State
11. Northwestern
12. Maryland
13. Minnesota
14. Nebraska
This might be a little high for Rutgers given how it performed against the dregs of the conference not long ago, but I moved the Scarlet Knights past Michigan and Iowa because of 1) how in sync they looked Saturday, 2) how up-and-down Michigan and Iowa have been with no “quality” wins for two weeks and 3) the head-to-head win Rutgers owns over both. If Ohio State and Wisconsin prove too much for Rutgers this week, they’ll be dropped accordingly.
Big East
1. Providence
2. Marquette
3. Villanova
4. Xavier
5. Seton Hall
6. UConn
7. St. John’s
8. Creighton
9. Butler
10. DePaul
11. Georgetown
All hail Providence, taking over the top spot in this power ranking after Villanova lost to Marquette for the second time. The difficult portion to sort in this league is really four through seven. Xavier’s loss to DePaul Saturday wasn’t pretty, but it was the Musketeers’ first “bad loss” of the season and there isn’t a good argument for the other candidates to be as high as No. 4. Seton Hall is moving up thanks to its 2-0 week and hosts Xavier Wednesday.
Ivy League
1. Yale
2. Princeton
3. Penn
4. Cornell
5. Harvard
6. Brown
7. Dartmouth
8. Columbia
Very little movement in my Ivy rankings this week, even as Princeton picked up its second loss Friday. Cornell made things interesting by getting revenge on the Tigers that day and then nearly rallying from down 21 to stun Penn Saturday, but it fell just short there. Brown beat Dartmouth, which has lost five of six, so I adjusted accordingly.
MAAC
1. Iona
2. Saint Peter’s
3. Monmouth
4. Siena
5. Niagara
6. Fairfield
7. Quinnipiac
8. Rider
9. Marist
10. Canisius
11. Manhattan
Well well, what do we have here? The first team to knock off Iona in MAAC play was sixth-place Niagara? Not what I would’ve expected. Friday was a busy day for Jersey teams here – Rider upset Siena on the road, Saint Peter’s and Quinnipiac got into a scuffle in the postgame handshake line and Monmouth beat Fairfield on this buzzer-beating bank shot. We’ll wrap up today’s newsletter with props to Marcus McClary, who also set Monmouth’s program record for games played that same night: