As Rutgers crumbles, Jamichael Davis is getting overlooked
Rutgers may have seen different results Wednesday against Iowa if the No. 2 point guard saw more action.
Figuring out this Rutgers team has been a season-long mystery. Steve Pikiell may feel the same way.
Injuries and illnesses aside, Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey – whose NBA draft stock remains stably in the top three – have struggled to put together three good games in a row. Jordan Derkack exploded for 26 points on the Madison Square Garden stage and has not made a single field goal in five games since. Dylan Grant didn’t crack the regular rotation until the second week of January, had a career-high 19 points and eight rebounds Sunday against Maryland, and then was mostly invisible on offense Wednesday vs. Iowa.
The Scarlet Knights are not going to the NCAA Tournament following their 84-73 home loss to Iowa, though I announced the time of death on those dreams in my bracketology column the other day. Rutgers blew a nine-point halftime edge as Iowa outscored them 51-31 in the second half, an inexcusable way to lose that would not have happened in the Geo Baker-Ron Harper Jr.-Caleb McConnell days.
Iowa got eight more shots up in the second half thanks to eight Rutgers turnovers and went 20-for-34. It was a close game until the last minute and change.
“We had enough points on the board,” Pikiell told reporters. “I haven’t done a great job with this group, defending, like really defending and not letting the offense affect your defense, and I thought we had that in the second half tonight.”
Answering a follow-up question about his 11-man rotation, Pikiell said, “We have some guys I play for offense, some guys I play for defense. … You go by feel and you try to make the right choices. Obviously in the second half I didn’t.”
If it’s defense he was looking for, where was Jamichael Davis?
Nobody wearing scarlet was perfect Wednesday. Davis had three fouls and got beaten a few times by bigger guys. But in the seven minutes he was given in the second half, across just two shifts, he put up seven of his 10 points and accrued only a minus-4 plus/minus rating, whereas several of his teammates went double digits into the minus.
Ahead of his freshman season in 2023-24, his classmate Derek Simpson told me the team nicknamed Davis “Mr. Activity” because he was everywhere on the court, especially as a defensive sparkplug. Before Wednesday’s result incensed the Rutgers fanbase far and wide, I had half a mind to headline today’s story “In praise of Jamichael Davis, Rutgers’ Mr. Activity.” It would have been a reference to a headline I had last year, “In praise of Dre Davis, Seton Hall’s Mr. Consistency,” but there’s a time and place to have a little fun and this ain’t it.
For those who don’t know, Davis grew up with Bailey and they played high school ball together. If part of the draw for Bailey to come from Atlanta to Rutgers was the potential to team up with Harper, then having Davis as a familiar face was not far down that list.
“J-Mike can do everything. I know he can do more that y’all think he can’t do,” Bailey told me after the Illinois game. “I mean I’ve been playing with him all my life. … He’s 6’2, so him getting in there with the rebounds with us... poking the hands, getting in the gaps, putting pressure on their bigs, all of it’s just helping us.”
Even if Davis doesn’t win every rebound – I was surprised he was only credited with one Wednesday – the fact that he gets in there to fight for defensive boards when he’s usually the shortest player on the court speaks volumes about his toughness and character. Davis would have fit in with older Pikiell teams, coming off the bench for Baker to provide some energy.
The sophomore barely scored in the first month of the season and saw his minutes dwindle around the same time that Harper started putting up 30-plus a game in Las Vegas. He worked his way back into the rotation and followed up a four-steal performance against Princeton with an 11-point, seven-assist, three-steal outing against Columbia.
Davis doesn’t profile as a prolific scorer, but he showed what can happen when he heats up on Feb. 1 against Michigan. Harper sat out with his ankle sprain and Davis still didn’t even crack the starting five, yet he was the first to sub into the game and immediately had the court awareness and the burst to pick off a loose ball and take it to the rim.
Combine that with the best 3-point shooting day of his college career (4-for-7), and he wound up with a career-high 20 points (and four steals) in the three-point loss.
“He’s an everyday guy, J-Mike. I love him,” Pikiell said that day. “He comes to work every single day. I don’t think he’s missed a practice in his two years. He never takes a day off, and he was really good today. We needed it, obviously.”
Harper was back four days later when then-No. 23 Illinois came to New Jersey. Davis didn’t need to shoot as much, and he could have seen a drop-off in minutes, but he stayed on the court, again because of defense and energy. The following play needs no breakdown:
Davis helped stymie Illinois’ guards for much of that game. When it was said and done, he had only four points and two assists at the other end of the court, yet Davis led the Scarlet Knights in plus/minus at plus-15.
Of Rutgers’ regular rotation players (meaning not Bryce Dortch), Davis has a team-high 2.0 defensive box plus/minus according to BartTorvik.com. Davis’ personal steal percentage is 2.8, meaning about 2.8% of opponent possessions while he’s on the floor end with him making a steal. And not for nothing, but he’s less turnover-prone than most of his teammates, ranking 220th nationally with just a 10.6% turnover rate.
“It doesn’t start in the game. I mean, in practice, he’s the most consistent player I would say in practice,” Harper said of Davis post-Illinois. “I mean, he shows up every day. First one in the gym, works hard, stuff like that. So I mean, I give his props to him every day. And all of us trust in him, when he gets in the game, he’s gonna make the right play. He’s gonna guard the best player to get a stop. You know, that’s who he is.”
Whether you consult the advanced metrics, his teammates and coaches or your own eyes, Davis has been one of Rutgers’ best all-around players in Big Ten play. So it leads you to wonder why he was left to watch most of the Scarlet Knights’ second-half defensive collapse vs. Iowa from the bench.
Davis himself was asked post-Michigan about his up-and-down season and how he stays ready for the moment his number is called.
“Basically just coming to work every day, trying to get better as a person,” he said. “Do the right thing for the team and do the most that we can do to help us win, and whatever Coach asks me to do, that’s what I’m gonna take on, that challenge.”