New Jersey men shut out of March Madness; Princeton, FDU women go dancing

There will be zero New Jersey representation in the men’s NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.

There was a moment Saturday – multiple moments, really, flashes in time as the clock ran down in Providence, R.I. – that the Princeton Tigers appeared to have one more episode of the “Cardiac Cats” in them.

They had shaken off the latest slow start that had come to typify their season. Blake Peters was hitting threes, Xaivian Lee was making plays and the Tigers finally displayed significant defensive improvements to bottle up a tremendous Yale offense.

Freshman center CJ Happy, who had missed his first six 3-point attempts, buried his seventh for Princeton’s first lead with 3:29 to go. Lee later made one of his own for a 57-56 edge, and it felt as though we were seeing Princeton at its fullest potential in a season of missed opportunities. Could Lee add another entry to his catalogue of game-winners?

But once John Poulakidas answered with a dagger three with a minute on the clock, balance was restored. The better team, the one who in a different era would have won the Ivy League’s automatic NCAA bid going away, took care of business in the semifinals, 59-57.

Princeton’s effort was terrific, but Princeton was done. And in that moment, so was New Jersey.

As this newsletter first hypothesized could happen way back on Jan. 28, there will be zero New Jersey representation in the men’s NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.

The good news for the state: The Princeton and FDU women made it to the dance, with FDU receiving a well-deserved No. 15 seed on the heels of a 22-game winning streak and NEC championship, and the Ivy League getting three bids for the first time with the Tigers joining Columbia among the field’s last four in after Harvard won the league.

Princeton will face Iowa State on Wednesday night in South Bend, Ind., for the right to a No. 11 seed and a Round of 64 date against No. 6 Michigan. FDU will head to Fort Worth, Texas, to face No. 2 seed TCU on Friday afternoon.

I will cover these teams’ tournament runs (from afar, obviously), but for today, let’s reflect on the end of the most disappointing men’s season the state has had in a decade.

Rutgers was clearly unqualified for an NCAA Tournament bid as far back as parts of January, when we were still in the mode of convincing ourselves, “Once Dylan Harper is fully healthy, this team could make a run.” The Scarlet Knights finished No. 75 in KenPom, certainly better than last year’s No. 100 rating, but with the exact same record of 15-17 and the exact same March result.

The funny thing is, this year there were more opportunities for postseason play, and Rutgers would have been right at home in the College Basketball Crown, a 16-team collection of mostly failed power-conference teams like Arizona State, Butler and Colorado. Heck, even DePaul is here!

But perhaps the DePauls and Arizona States are only there because of the teams that turned down invites. Rutgers made it known Sunday morning that it would not accept an invitation to either the Crown or the NIT, ending their season.

“The Rutgers men’s basketball program will not participate in any postseason tournaments this season,” the program said in a brief statement. “We would like to thank our players and staff for their hard work this year and our fans for their continued support.”

I’m sure the Crown people were deeply disappointed not to have the potential TV draw of Harper and Ace Bailey in their event, but let’s be honest: Those guys are all-in on draft preparation now. No need to risk injury in the college hoops equivalent of the Poinsettia Bowl. That was always the likeliest epilogue once the Scarlet Knights’ season turned south.

I have nothing left to say about Seton Hall that hasn’t already been said or covered in a prior edition. The Pirates’ worst season in the modern era was both a shame and also entirely foreseeable as early as November.

Combine that with Rutgers’ massive underachievement, and it was up to one of the mid-majors to win their league and get a berth.

At various points this season, FDU, Monmouth and Princeton looked dangerous enough to make a run. FDU’s conference tournament was only three rounds, after all, and Ivy Madness only two. They can be crapshoots. Who will get hot at the precise right time?

FDU challenged top-seeded Central Connecticut State with a massive second-half run to force overtime, but from there the Knights came up short. A week later, Princeton nearly did the same to a Yale team that had beaten it 77-70 and 84-57 in the regular season.

Down two in the final 30 seconds, Princeton didn’t foul despite Mitch Henderson’s pleading. Peters and Lee stood with four fouls apiece. Yale dribbled out the shot clock.

“We were trying to foul early and we got into a situation where we didn’t foul and it worked out,” Henderson said. “We got the shot clock violation in plenty of time with the ball back. It didn’t work out for us the two previous possessions, but they made huge plays.

“We had great looks to put the game out of reach or up four at least. I felt really good about what we were able to do there in the last two minutes of the game.”

We’ve reached the tail end of a stretch in which Saint Peter’s, FDU and Princeton won a combined six NCAA Tournament games; Seton Hall won the NIT; Rutgers had multiple tourney appearances and future NBA stars in a five-year window; and two players at Jersey mid-majors finished top-15 in the nation in scoring in the same season (Terrence Brown, 10th, 20.6 ppg; Abdi Bashir Jr., T-15th, 20.1 ppg).

I could perform more of a postmortem of certain teams in the coming weeks, but why? I expect most of the big news between now and the end of April will be related to player movement – Lee declaring for the draft, perhaps Bashir and Brown entering the transfer portal.

New players come in. The cycle restarts. Yet this does feel like the end of an era in a way.

Players like Lee don’t find themselves in Jadwin Gym every season. You could argue that as high-major programs become obsessed with the transfer portal, they overlook prep recruits in far-away outposts like Omaha, leaving someone of Bashir’s caliber to do his thing at Monmouth. Still, the hit rate on these guys isn’t high.

Sure, Rutgers has a pretty good freshman class on the way, and Steve Pikiell will be motivated to correct the mistakes he made in 2023-24. There’s nowhere for Seton Hall to go but up. Princeton may get (a fully healthy) Caden Pierce back for a senior season to cap off a terrific Ivy career.

But whatever happens next will ultimately feel like the foundation of a rebuilding period around the state.