After Wednesday night’s big 59-50 victory over Indiana, the Rutgers men's basketball team is now tied with Illinois and Wisconsin for second place in the Big Ten standings with a 4-2 conference record.
With New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on hand, as well as new football coach Greg Schiano, the sold out raucous crowd at the RAC saw their Scarlet Knights improve to an impressive 12-0 record at home so far this year.
“I just think when our guys are connected and in their voices today I could see that in the huddles they were locked in,” Pikiell said in his postgame press conference after the win over Indiana. “Coach Hobbs and Coach Knight do a great job preparing.”
To say that Head Coach Steve Pikiell has built something at Rutgers would be the understatement of the century, as he currently has his team ranked a program-high 22nd in KenPom rankings, along with knocking on the door of an AP Top 25.
Now in his fourth season, Pikiell has built his team on the key foundations of defense, defense, and more defense. The Scarlet Knights currently boast a defensive unit that ranks eighth in efficiency according to KenPom and has held tournament caliber teams such as Seton Hall, Indiana, and Illinois all to season lows in both points scored and shooting percentage.
Coach Pikiell also pointed to the fact that keeping Indiana off of the free throw line was a major key in securing the victory on Wednesday. The Hoosiers came into the game leading the country in free throw attempts per game (27.3), making 18.6 of those free throws per game.
“We kept them off the free throw line so we had to defend without fouling against some really good elite front court players,” Pikiell said. “I thought we were locked into the game plan, everyone jumped in and did their thing, and it’s great we were connected.”
Along with their outstanding defensive play thus far this season and the fact that the RAC has seemingly become a house of horrors, Rutgers presents a dangerous and formidable threat for visiting teams going forward.
“I’ve been traveling down this road in this league for a while and every place is so hard to play,” Pikiell said. “And now the RAC is just like those places and it’s a great advantage for us.”
Whether it was the ovation junior point guard and team captain Geo Baker got when he checked into the game for the first time since being sidelined with a thumb injury or the fact that at one point the crowd erupted in a “We Want Cliff” chant, referencing four star Roselle Catholic recruit Cliff Omoruyi, the RAC seems to be hitting decibel levels not seen in some time on a regular basis.
The entire night was highlighted late in the second half when Baker slammed home a monstrous dunk over Indiana’s 6-foot-11 big man Joey Brunk, putting an exclamation point on the win and finding himself at number two on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays the next day.
Rutgers will look to keep the momentum going and extend their home winning streak to 13 when they take on Minnesota on Sunday at 1 p.m. on BTN.
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