Midseason checkup: One thing ailing every N.J. team
From an offensive diagnosis for Rutgers to an intangible issue for Seton Hall.
Three games in two days.
How did I do it? With a ton of driving, minimal sleep and some unhealthy eating habits, that’s how.
My tripleheader weekend (the only one I’m planning for the regular season) took me to Hackensack, Newark and Piscataway at an enjoyable time of the season, when conference action is in full force and we’re getting an idea of how each league’s races will shape up.
It was nearly a clean sweep for the home teams, until Rutgers fell 76-65 to Iowa on Sunday. With a win, the Scarlet Knights would have been 4-1 in the Big Ten this morning, tied with Purdue atop the standings, and basically a shoe-in for an AP Top 25 ranking later today. (More on that later.)
But when you watch enough basketball, it doesn’t take long to recognize that no team is perfect. Purdue has flaws. Kansas has flaws. Rutgers, of course, has a couple flaws we should discuss.
With that in mind, I’m taking each New Jersey team into the doctor’s office for a midseason checkup. Let’s see the patients in order of their NCAA NET ranking and diagnose one issue for each.
Rutgers
Record: 11-5 (3-2 Big Ten)
NET: 20
KenPom: 16
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 11 at Northwestern, Jan. 15 vs. Ohio State, Jan. 19 at Michigan State
What’s ailing them: Shot selection/finishing. Rutgers’ five-game winning streak ended Sunday, and while it’s fair to point to a defense that yielded season highs in points and 3-pointers (12), I want to highlight the other end of the court. Veteran players were rushing shots and trying to hit from poor angles, leading to six Iowa blocks and several more balls hitting the underside of the rim. Steve Pikiell felt it had more to do with finishing than shot selection. “Their center (Filip Rebraca) is having a really good year and he’ll challenge some things at the rim. I did think we had some very makeable shots around the basket, and we just needed to cash in on some of those and some timely threes,” he said, adding, “I really thought more finish around the rim, finish some of those plays in the lane, that would have really helped us a great deal.” I don’t want to over-cite KenPom – it’s not the be-all, end-all – but Rutgers dropped to No. 131 in offensive efficiency while remaining No. 3 on defense.
Seton Hall
Record: 9-8 (2-4 Big East)
NET: 74
KenPom: 59
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 10 at Georgetown, Jan. 14 at DePaul, Jan. 18 vs. No. 4 UConn
What’s ailing them: Resilience. These Pirates have shown they know how to win big, i.e. overwhelming Butler 76-51 Saturday. But when a game is getting out of hand – see Siena at Disney World, Kansas, Marquette and Creighton – Shaheen Holloway clearly doesn’t like the effort he sees down the stretch. “No energy. Never been a part of something where guys don’t want to play basketball,” he said after losing to a good Siena team. And when Creighton whipped the Pirates 83-61: “There’s going to be nights like this where things aren’t going well, but our effort still has to be there and to me that is the disappointing part.”
Princeton
Record: 12-4 (3-0 Ivy)
NET: 96
KenPom: 106
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 14 at Brown, Jan. 16 at Penn, Jan. 21 vs. Dartmouth
What’s ailing them: Hard for me to say. The Tigers are playing better day in, day out than any other team in the state. Their 75-68 road win at Cornell Saturday put them in pole position in the Ivy League. I’ll get picky and point to free throws. When your team motto is “Make Shots,” the free ones should feel like exactly that. In 2018-19 and 2019-20, it was a strength of this team, a percentage in the mid-70s, but they were near the bottom of D1 last year at 64% and stand at 69.3% right now. In fairness, they have made most of their foul shots in crunch time.
Rider
Record: 6-9 (3-3 MAAC)
NET: 241
KenPom: 213
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 15 at Iona, Jan. 20 vs. Niagara, Jan. 22 vs. Manhattan
What’s ailing them: Finishing games. Rider started the MAAC slate 3-0 before losing three in a row. On Sunday, the Broncs visited conference leader Siena (alone in first after Iona’s surprising loss to Quinnipiac) and drew within four in the final two minutes before losing 68-63. It should be noted that Rider played three games in seven days, but in all three losses, they were in a stone’s throw of the lead down the stretch. Dwight Murray Jr., who missed the Quinnipiac game with a concussion and who recently surpassed 1,000 career points, needs a hand.
Fairleigh Dickinson
Record: 10-8 (3-0 NEC)
NET: 302
KenPom: 315
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 14 at Central Connecticut, Jan. 16 at Stonehill, Jan. 20 vs. Sacred Heart
What’s ailing them: Defense. The Knights rate 360th on KenPom in defensive efficiency. They led LIU by 18 at the half Saturday before letting them get nervously close in the dying minutes. That was the first game of my weekend tripleheader, and I’ll have more on FDU coming in Thursday’s edition. “That’s why today was a step back – I thought we got a whole lot better” defensively, coach Tobin Anderson told me. “Like the other day against St. Francis (Brooklyn) we played really well defensively, and then we actually practiced very well defensively, and then today was not great defensively. But listen, there’s a lot of ways to win games.” In that St. Francis game, they gave up just 57. Already tied for the conference lead, if the defense plays like that more often, they’ll be in great position.
Saint Peter’s
Record: 7-9 (2-5 MAAC)
NET: 321
KenPom: 304
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 13 at Quinnipiac, Jan 15 vs. Fairfield, Jan. 20 at Marist
What’s ailing them: Shooting. The Peacocks have an effective field goal percentage of just 43.4%, 351st in the country. They’re making neither threes (29.1%) nor twos (43.3%) enough of the time to stand much of a chance in the MAAC, where they’ve at least beaten a pesky Quinnipiac team but otherwise check in at 10th place of 11 teams. One bright spot to highlight: Freshman Corey Washington is the Peacocks’ third-leading scorer (7.6) and second-leading rebounder (5.4) while shooting 73.6%. That’s all from within the arc; he’s yet to attempt a three.
NJIT
Record: 4-11 (1-1 America East)
NET: 325
KenPom: 328
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 11 vs. Binghamton, Jan. 14 vs. Albany, Jan. 19 at Bryant
What’s ailing them: Slow starts. Props to the Highlanders for charging back late against Maine, forcing overtime and grabbing their first conference win on Sunday, 91-83. Maine had a 27-16 lead after 10 minutes and change. The game before that, UMass Lowell took a nine-point lead into halftime before NJIT’s rally fell short in a 67-64 loss.
Monmouth
Record: 1-15 (0-3 CAA)
NET: 358
KenPom: 356
Upcoming schedule: Jan. 11 at Hofstra, Jan. 14 at Towson, Jan. 19 vs. No. 23 Charleston
What’s ailing them: Offense, as a general concept. Monmouth lost its most recent game at Drexel 67-35, with 15 turnovers, 2-of-12 shooting from the arc and 7-of-16 shooting from the stripe. I don’t want to slam the rebuilding Hawks, so just revisit my story on them from late December if you want some more of the nitty-gritty numbers. The Hawks’ defense has allowed only 67-68 points in each of their first three games in the Colonial, which is more promising.
………
Thanks for stopping by this Monday morning. Two quick bullets and then we’re out of here:
Iowa senior forward Patrick McCaffery announced a leave of absence from basketball last week to address ongoing anxiety that had gotten worse for him. Coach Fran McCaffery, Patrick’s father, called Rutgers “a class operation” because of the program’s response.
Rutgers athletic director Pat Hobbs “came by practice (Saturday) to offer his well wishes for my Patrick,” McCaffery said postgame. “And the Rutgers basketball team filled out a card to wish him luck as he goes through what he’s going through. I don’t know how many programs would do that, but that speaks to who Pat Hobbs is and who Steve Pikiell is, so I just wanted to say that. We’re supposed to hate each other, I guess, but that’s not the way it is. As competitors we fight, but we’re all in this thing together, we’re all in this journey together.”
For context, Hobbs and McCaffery go back years. When Hobbs was in the same position at Seton Hall, he interviewed McCaffery for the head coaching position before the Siena coach took the Iowa job and Kevin Willard came to South Orange.
Pikiell later spoke from the heart about the challenges student-athletes face in this day and age. “For what the McCafferys are going through, I just want him to be better and to have fun playing basketball,” he said in part.
Per last Thursday’s newsletter, keep an eye out to see if Seton Hall receives votes in the women’s poll. Columbia might be close to breaking into the Top 25, too, after the win over Princeton it’s waited so long for. On the men’s side, I would have been banging the drum for the Scarlet Knights had they completed a 3-0 week, but I think recency bias with the Iowa loss means few voters will add Rutgers to their ballots, despite the Purdue win and great metrics. No. 15 Indiana, No. 19 Baylor, No. 21 New Mexico and No. 24 Ohio State all need to drop out after two losses apiece (some losses worse than others), so there will be no shortage of space. Bet on Kansas State and Providence to appear.