In the now-No. 24 Rutgers men’s basketball team’s 64-56 win over Minnesota on Sunday afternoon, the Scarlet Knights (14-4, 5-2 Big Ten) Montez Mathis had himself a first seven minutes.
The sophomore guard put Rutgers on the scoreboard on a layup underneath the basket after he grabbed an offensive rebound. He then prevented the Gophers from inbounding the ball and the visitors called a 30-second timeout.
Minnesota, however, would go on a stunning 7-0 run to go up 10-2 forcing Rutgers coach Steve Pikeill to call a timeout at 16:34 mark.
But then Mathis took over.
Mathis responded a minute later with a 3-pointer after a Myles Johnson steal. Not known as a threat from the outside, he made another, though.
Mathis then notched another layup, was fouled, and make the free throw to give Rutgers its first lead at 11-10 with the clock showing 13:16 in the first half.
“I was just playing. It was just me playing my game, defense, and playing hard, basically. I had the will to win and we won. That’s all I care about,” Mathis said after the tilt.
“It was exciting. But I also knew we had almost the whole game left. I wanted to keep us in the game.”
Johnson provided the assist on Mathis’ second triple.
“I remember I passed out of the post and he made that three. He brought us all the way back,” Johnson said. “As soon as he made that three, I knew it was going to be a good game for ‘Tez.”
Mathis finished with just those 11 points on the day, but he also had three rebounds, an assist, and two steals in 25 minutes of action.
“It was huge. It gave us energy,” Johnson added of Mathis. “We got punched in the face and we had to get back up. His baskets and defensive effort, it gave us the energy. He got us into the game. ...He was feeling it.”
On the defensive end, Mathis kept Minnesota’s Marcus Carr in check. Carr came into the game averaging 16.5 points and 7.3 assists per game. Mathis face guarded Carr. It was much of the same when Jacob Young came in off the bench and defended Carr.
The Pitt transfer ended up with eight points, but six of those came on 3-pointers with the game in check late near the end.
“We just wanted to be aggressive with him,” Mathis said. “Marcus Carr is a really good player. In practice, I heard his name the whole time, so I just tried to contain him. He’s one of the best point guards in the league. I wanted to make it as hard as possible for him.”
“I mean they swarmed Marcus (Carr) on ball screens,” added Minnesota coach Richard Pitino. “...Rutgers is big, they're a really big team, a physical team. They're one of the best defensive teams in the country."
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.
