The streak is over. After winning 17 straight games at the RAC Rutgers fell to Michigan on Wednesday night by a final score of 60-52. With the loss, the Scarlet Knights fall to an overall record of 18-9 and 9-7 in conference play.
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Here are three thoughts after the game:
RUTGERS GOES ICE COLD IN SECOND HALF
Coming off of a 72-57 victory against Illinois, Rutgers came out of the gate firing on all cylinders offensively against Michigan and went into halftime leading 31-28. However, the team went ice cold in the second half scoring just 21 points en route to their first loss at home on the season. As a team, the Scarlet Knights ended the game with a field goal percentage of 35 percent and went 3-18 from the three point line.
“The ball didn’t go in for us in the second half,” Head Coach Steve Pikiell said in his postgame press conference. “I did like our looks for the most part, but you have to put the ball in the basket to play a basketball team like that and we had one of those nights.”
MICHIGAN JUST HAS RUTGERS NUMBER
With the way that the schedule ended up working out, Rutgers and their fans had reason to believe that in both of the games against Michigan they could have come away with the victory. However, the Scarlet Knights came up just short in both matchups and with Wednesday night’s loss Rutgers not only dropped the season series against Michigan, but they remain winless (0-13) all-time against the Wolverines as well.
“I have to give Michigan credit I know how good they are,” Pikiell said. “They’ve been playing great basketball, they were ranked as high as three or four in the country.”
RUTGERS LOSES SERVE AT HOME
With 18 wins and just one more home game left, Rutgers is now going to have to get at least one win away from the RAC in order to reach the magic number of 20 in hopes of an NCAA Tournament bid. While Rutgers has the Big Ten tournament to fall back on if they are unable to do so, if they wish to not sweat going into Selection Sunday the Scarlet Knights are going to have to find two more wins before the season is over.
“This team is good we just have to play elite basketball on the road,” Pikiell said. “It’s an elite league, got great teams, teams with huge home-court advantages.”
Pikiell stresses that focusing on their defense is what is going to be the difference between winning and losing on the road.
“Our defense keeps us in all these games and that’s what we have to keep being focused on our defense,” Pikiell said. “Go on the road, [play] elite defense and then the ball goes in, we’ll be able to get one on the road.”
Rutgers will return to action on Sunday, Feb. 23 at 1 p.m. (ET) when they travel to the Kohl Center to take on Wisconsin. The game will be televised on BTN.
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