Rutgers wasn’t about to hit the panic button after its fourth-straight loss, and even if the Scarlet Knights wanted to, they’d probably miss it entirely and sprain their index fingers in the process. It’s been that kind of streak for this team.
They couldn’t make anything on Friday night -- open 3-pointers, contested layups or (as usual) those confounding free throws -- in a 60-54 loss to Wisconsin. It was their fifth loss in six games after climbing to the brink of a top-10 ranking, but if fans feel like they are witnessing a potentially historic season slowly slip away, they should know the players see something else entirely.
Progress.
No, really.
“We had an identity crisis, but in this game we got back to what we normally do -- rebounding, defense, playing hard,” center Myles Johnson said. “The outcome was whatever, but we played like Rutgers again. If we keep doing that we can beat anybody in this league.”
He’s right about the effort part. After back-to-back no-shows in losses to Michigan State and Ohio State, the Scarlet Knights found a level of intensity that had vanished a couple weeks ago. They out-rebounded Wisconsin, 50-35, as they dominated the nation’s ninth-ranked team in the paint -- a promising development, to be sure, given their previous struggles.
They still couldn’t sniff 60 points, though. As solid as they played defensively, they were equally putrid on the other end of the floor. Steve Pikiell was quick to point out that his players missed half a season’s worth of open looks, and they did.
But they were also out of sync for most of this game, and their two biggest stars -- Ron Harper Jr. and Geo Baker -- are suddenly mired in an awful funk.
That is a troubling development at this stage of the season. Harper, who looked like a candidate for Big Ten Player of the Year three weeks ago, hit just 2 of 13 shots for four points in his fourth-straight clunker. Baker, the breakout star a season ago who has struggled with injuries this year, wasn’t much better at 4-of-11 shooting with eight points and no assists.
Rutgers is just about unstoppable when both halves of that duo are clicking. With one connecting, at least the Scarlet Knights know they have a clutch performer who can make a crucial bucket when the game is hanging in the balance.
If they’re both MIA? Pikiell rather not thinking about it.
“As long as we keep getting good looks and we play defense like that, we’ll be fine,” the head coach said. “We had chances to win today and the ball didn’t go in.”
Look: It is clear now that everybody, including people inside and outside of this program, got a little carried away with this team early this season. Rutgers was climbing in the polls and talking about winning the nation’s toughest conference, and while it is good to aim high, the current skid has recalibrated those expectations considerably.
The concern now is that the bottom might drop out. Rutgers isn’t as good as the team that nearly cracked the top 10 a couple weeks ago, but it is certainly better than the one that has gone from playing for its NCAA Tournament seeding to being a couple more losses away from sitting on the wrong side of the tournament bubble entirely.
The Scarlet Knights are entering a dangerous territory now. They are entering a stretch with three out of their next four games on the road against unranked teams -- Penn State, Indiana and Northwestern -- with Michigan State, which clobbered them by 23 in East Lansing on Jan. 6, sandwiched in between.
Win three out of four, and they’ll be back on track for that first NCAA bid in three decades. Lose three out of four, and Rutgers will start seeing its name drop out of those bracketology projections in a hurry. No one, least of all the players, thought that might happen this winter.
They aren’t taking it lightly. Johnson revealed that the team had a players-only meeting during the six-day layoff before hosting Wisconsin, both to clear the air and to remind each other of their goals.
“We talked about, ‘What do we want out of this season?’” Johnson said. “We’ve got to get back to what we normally are doing. Our emphasis was, play like we used to play. Look at the Illinois tape. That was our main goal, to play like we’re supposed to play.”
And, as guard Jacob Young concluded after the Wisconsin loss, “We looked like Rutgers again.” Young had 19 points on 9-of-15 shooting but was the only Rutgers player in double digits on a night when he and his teammates shot hit just two of 19 shots from behind the arc.
The good news: With freshman center Cliff Omoruyi back from a knee injury, Pikiell finally has his full complement of players for the first time. Maybe this effort, even in a loss, will spark a winning streak that will change the season’s trajectory.
Up next: A trip to Penn State, which is as close to a must-win as a team can have in January. The players might not be panicking yet, but fans are forgiven for mashing that red button.
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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.
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With its stars struggling, this historic Rutgers hoops season is in danger of slipping away | Politi - NJ.com
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