Rutgers, Seton Hall, Rider bow out; Princeton is New Jersey’s final hope
Three more seasons, disappointing to various degrees, are now extinguished.
ATLANTIC CITY – Princeton is given a 10% probability to make the NCAA Tournament by TeamRankings.com and 6.5% by Bart Torvik’s TourneyCast. ESPN’s analytics peg the Tigers at just a 22.4% chance of winning the first game over Yale.
It’s not impossible, but it’s undeniably unlikely that the fourth-seeded Tigers will pull off the Ivy Madness upset given how they’ve played this winter. But they’re officially the state’s last hope for any representation in the men’s NCAA Tournament.
A conference tournament run by Rider, Rutgers or (snicker) Seton Hall would have done the trick and garnered New Jersey a spot via auto bid, but of course these were never outcomes worth betting on. Sure enough, those teams fell like dominoes in that order Wednesday night. Three more seasons, disappointing to various degrees, now extinguished.
The most forgivable of the three would have to be Rider, which just didn’t match up well against Quinnipiac, the regular-season champions with the MAAC Player of the Year in Amarri Monroe and other dudes who can flat-out play and throw their weight around. Rider coach Kevin Baggett felt his team didn’t fare nearly as well as in the two regular-season matchups with the Bobcats.
“We just needed some of our better guys to show up that struggled to show up today,” he said to conclude his opening statement postgame.
T.J. Weeks and Tariq Ingraham certainly showed up, the former tying his season high of 23 points with nine rebounds and the latter finishing 8-for-9 for 18 points and eight boards. But Zion Cruz (0-for-6) and Jay Alvarez (0-for-1), arguably the two Rider players with the most buzz surrounding them entering the season, combined for zero points, a losing recipe even though Weeks and Ingraham did their parts.
Quinnipiac’s superior physicality showed not only in a plus-7 rebounding advantage but a major edge at the foul line, where they went 19-for-25 as opposed to Rider’s 7-for-11.
“I felt they were hitting us first,” Weeks said, “especially when we were on defense and they were going for the rebounds I felt like they were hitting us first, grabbing the offensive rebound for them. So I feel like we could have picked it up in that aspect.”
Ingraham had a stellar end to his season, scoring 18, 19 and 18 points in the final three games and averaging 13.2 ppg and 8.6 rebounds per game over the last nine. Due to COVID, injuries and his transfer from Wake Forest years ago, Ingraham has what would be a seventh year of college eligibility, which could mean a fourth season at Rider.
“It’s still up in the air right now. I haven’t made a decision yet,” Ingraham said.
Rutgers went to double overtime in a 97-89 loss to USC in the 11-14 game of the Big Ten tournament, and there will surely be better recaps of this game out there than what I provide. What you need to know is the Scarlet Knights trailed by 15 during the first half and 11 at intermission, they stormed back and held a four-point lead with 36 seconds left in regulation, and they squandered that lead due in no small part to Jeremiah Williams missing two free throws that could have sealed it.
Desmond Claude waltzed by Dylan Harper for the overtime-forcing layup, and while Harper had a monster game offensively that included this slam dunk to help force the second OT, the Rutgers defense was blitzed again and again.
I wish to amend my statement from Monday morning’s edition about how Rutgers fans will remember the Harper and Bailey era. Their individual highlights are cool for an NBA draft mixtape. But even some fun wins and some buzzer-beaters over rivals like Seton Hall won’t erase the overwhelming first feeling of disappointment. It’ll be, “We had Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey… and we couldn’t get to the tournament with them.”
Trolling through online comments this morning, and both Mike Broadbent’s reaction to an “everything will be fine” post here and this reply to Broadbent here are very fair amid a sea of outcry.
Each season has been worse than the last. It’s not Pikiell’s fault that Rutgers lost Mawot Mag to injury and got snubbed by the committee in 2023, but that one wouldn’t sting as much if the following few teams could make a bucket (2024) or get a stop (2025), let alone return to March Madness.
But the Pikiell way was to develop three-stars into great defenders and hustlers while squeezing just enough offense out of a few kids, and in the portal era it’s going to be a hell of a time for him to adjust to that.
If I’m Rutgers’ AD, I’m not pulling the trigger on a firing this year. I still believe that’s too far. But there is a postseason sitdown discussion to be had with the man about what went wrong and what steps he’ll take to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Pikiell’s seat will be warm next year, if not downright hot.
Seton Hall did what Seton Hall does: score 17 points by halftime and finish with 55 – 25 supplied by Isaiah Coleman alone – in a 12-point loss to Villanova in the 6-11 game of the Big East tournament.
Six players managed to score for the Pirates. The era of Dylan Addae-Wusu (two points, six turnovers Wednesday) and Yacine Toumi (zero points) is now over.
The Pirates’ short stay at MSG was predictable, and their 7-25 final record was the second-worst in program history. A P.J. Carlesimo-coached team in 1982-83 finished with a worse winning percentage at 6-23, but this year’s team set program records for total losses as well as Big East losses with 18.
There will be time in the future (and I’m going to need several weeks away from this team first) to think about roster construction for 2025-26, but Jerry Carino got some interesting answers from players in the locker room Wednesday night. I recommend his full piece for those of you still bleeding blue.
“I’m definitely looking forward to coming back here,” Coleman told him. “Just got to chop it up with the fam and see what’s going on, see what’s best for me and my future. Right now I’m a Seton Hall Pirate.”
Godswill Erheriene said he’s staying at Seton Hall to “go with the program that trusts me,” and “yes,” that decision is final.
It’s a start. There’s expected to be more money in the NIL coffers for Seton Hall (and other Big East teams) next year when an athletic revenue-sharing model gets approved this spring.
It’s funny how the perceptions at Rutgers and Seton Hall are so different. At Seton Hall, a small, private, Catholic school with a smaller budget, the transfers they were able to afford weren’t good enough to hang on the Big East stage. At Rutgers, well, that’s a state school that cares about basketball, so why didn’t Pikiell bring in better players?
In reality, Shaheen Holloway is still figuring this out just as Pikiell is figuring it out and coaches around the sport are still figuring it out. Some figured out that it’s a game they don’t want to try to play, like Tony Bennett. As I wrote the other day, the landscape gets altered approximately every 18 months. Fans of these programs don’t want to be patient, but patience is often what’s required as this evolution of college sports goes through its final throes and convulsions.
………
Scorecard for New Jersey D1 programs and where their seasons stand:
Men
Princeton: Saturday vs. Yale in Providence, R.I., 11 a.m. (Ivy Madness semifinal)
Rutgers: NIT at best (15-17, 8-12 Big Ten, lost to USC in double overtime in Big Ten tournament first round)
Seton Hall: Season over (7-25, 2-18 Big East, lost to Villanova in Big East tournament first round)
Monmouth: Season over (13-20, 10-8 CAA, lost to Charleston in overtime in CAA quarterfinal)
Rider: Season over (14-19, 9-11 MAAC, lost to Quinnipiac in MAAC quarterfinal)
Saint Peter’s: Season over (12-16, 7-13 MAAC, missed MAAC tournament)
FDU: Season over (13-20, 8-8 NEC, lost to CCSU in overtime in NEC semifinal)
NJIT: Season over (6-25, 3-13 America East, missed America East tournament)
Women
Monmouth: Thursday vs. Hampton in Washington, D.C., 2:30 p.m. (CAA tournament second round)
FDU: Thursday vs. Chicago State in Hackensack, 7 p.m. (NEC semifinal)
Princeton: Friday vs. Harvard in Providence, R.I., 7:30 p.m. (Ivy Madness semifinal)
Seton Hall: Awaiting their fate (22-9, 13-5 Big East, lost to Creighton in Big East semifinal)
Rutgers: Season over (11-19, 3-15 Big Ten, lost to Nebraska in Big Ten tournament first round)
Rider: Season over (7-22, 5-15 MAAC, missed MAAC tournament)
Saint Peter’s: Season over (11-19, 9-11 MAAC, lost to Iona in MAAC tournament first round)
NJIT: Season over (11-19, 8-8 America East, lost to Maine in America East tournament first round)