New lineups, more connectedness: What Rutgers can take from 1-2 homestand

Rutgers beat UCLA 75-68 in a game the Scarlet Knights simply had to have.

Dylan Harper practices with Rutgers. (Photo courtesy of Rutgers athletics)

PISCATAWAY – As Rutgers’ head coach and top three players took their seats to begin their postgame press conference Monday, Jeremiah Williams, Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey seemed to be their usual selves after a win – relaxed, often smiling and trading a quick word or joke amongst themselves. Steve Pikiell, meanwhile, just looked relieved.

Those two moods perfectly mirrored a fan base that watched Rutgers drop back-to-back games at home before finally securing a win to complete a three-game homestand, defeating UCLA 75-68 on Monday evening.

Reason to smile. Reason to simply exhale.

“It’s been a tough couple weeks and these guys just kept fighting,” Pikiell said. “They’ve been doing a tremendous job in practice and they keep plugging, so I’m proud of them.”

The Bruins were a good team as recently as two weeks ago, when they knocked off Gonzaga 65-62 and rose to No. 15 in the AP poll. They have lost four since, taking some of the luster off Rutgers’ result (if you’re tracking, this is currently a Quad 2 win for NCAA Tournament resume purposes, not a Quad 1).

UCLA was making its last stop of a two-game East Coast swing to face its new Big Ten “neighbors.” Coach Mick Cronin had recently laid into his players so hard that it made national headlines. Put simply, Rutgers had to have this game.

The Scarlet Knights kept the margin within three at halftime and shot out of the locker room from there. Bailey and Harper scored the first eight points of the half and Rutgers never let UCLA have the lead again.

Even a second-half field goal drought that lasted more than 7 1/2 minutes didn’t put a damper on things, even if fans and students clenched up for a while down the stretch, watching missed attempt after missed attempt.

While the field goals weren’t going in, Rutgers did score nine straight from the foul line to build a lead of as many as nine. Bailey, who’s struggled from the line all season, finished 5-for-5 there as he put up game highs of 20 points and 10 rebounds.

Despite the drought, Rutgers shot 13-for-23 in the second half. Harper, Bailey and Williams combined to provide 11 of those field goals on 19 tries.

That’ll work, especially to complement a defensive effort that finally looked like Pikiell basketball, taking advantage of a tired and flustered UCLA group.

“Going forward,” co-captain Williams said, “I think the mindset we’re going to keep is continue to compete in practice and continue to show up to games with energy and playing with each other and try to use this game as a stepping stone. That’s all we’re gonna do, and go into the next game with a clear slate, clean practice and just try to go win another game on the road.”

Williams added that he feels the Scarlet Knights always compete at practice, but there’s a bit of a “different sense” when you’re coming off three straight losses and two at home.

Did Rutgers save its season Monday? Hardly. They’ll need to win many more to get onto the tournament bubble. UCLA is the closest thing they have to a signature win so far, and as discussed above, the Bruins are damaged goods. But the Scarlet Knights would have been 1-5 in the Big Ten had they lost, and there’s basically no coming back from that.

After Rutgers fell to Wisconsin and Purdue and ended on a higher note against UCLA, here are the four major themes of this homestand as I see them.

1. To fuel this offense, stars matter

Rutgers fans are upset with Pikiell over a number of things, from roster construction to how his defensive coaching hasn’t appeared to sink in to the foolish-in-hindsight decision to schedule a road game at Kennesaw State as a layover before Las Vegas.

Here’s something that had a major affect on this Rutgers season that no one can fault Pikiell for. You can’t fault Pikiell that Harper caught a bad strain of the flu when he did.

Harper had to sit out Rutgers’ winnable Jan. 2 road game at Indiana because of how sick he was, and he played the opener of this homestand against Wisconsin but barely had an impact because he was clearly still recovering.

It isn’t wishful thinking to say Rutgers could have won at least one of those two with a healthy Harper. But the tournament committee has already shown time and again that it doesn’t care how long your star player sat out. Injuries (and illness) happen to every team.

That said, Harper was back to full strength by Monday, and it was evident in how Rutgers played. The Scarlet Knights don’t have some genius offense like UConn or Kentucky under Dan Hurley and Mark Pope. What they have is two future NBA stars who can beat at least 70% of Big Ten players in isolation most of the time.

I’m usually more interested in seeing an offense rack up a high rate of assists on its made shots, but for Rutgers I’ll make an exception. This team has its best chance to succeed when Harper is driving down the lane to finish at the rim and when Bailey is connecting on his signature shot, a flashy turnaround jumper on the baseline. Make no mistake, the freshmen are willing to pass, but by now the average fan can see that Rutgers doesn’t have consistent secondary scorers besides Williams to pass it to.

Harper, who confirmed he lost close to nine pounds while ill, scored 12 of his 18 points in the second half Monday. He was asked if he felt back to his old self when he made some of his layups through traffic.

“I mean, those are definitely Dylan Harper layups,” Harper said. “Yeah, I think it’s more me getting back to my groove, getting back to my flow and just playing my game and not being hesitant.”