No. 19 Rutgers women’s basketball defeated No. 22 Ohio State, 71-63, in dominating fashion. Rutgers led by as many as 15 in the second, third, and fourth quarters. The game was really never in question.
The win locked up the three-seed for the 14-3 (10-3 Big Ten) Scarlet Knights heading into the Big Ten Tournament where they start their run on Thursday March 11 at about 9:00 p.m. in Indianapolis.
But head coach C. Vivian Stringer, who has more than 1,000 wins, and her team weren’t satisfied.
“We're excited about being the three-seed in the Big Ten. But, we didn't play our best game today,” Stringer said. “It was amazing because when we walked into the locker room, you would have thought that we had just lost because they have higher levels of expectation of themselves. I felt and I saw that dejected look, because they expect to play at a very high level.”
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Rutgers has gone 9-0 since coming back from its almost five-week COVID-19 pause. It has two victories over ranked teams during the stretch as it also beat No. 21 Northwestern on the road by 16. The nine straight league wins is the most the team has had in a row since the 2005-06 season and it tied its highest finish in the conference since joining in 2014-15. That 2005-06 team went 16-0 in Big East action before making the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament and won 24-straight Big East games going back to the prior year.
“I don't think that you can ever expect nine straight, but I think that each game we progressed and felt more confident,” Stringer said. “In the games and in practice, each person contributed even more. ...I think that we're solid, and will continue to be solid.”
During the winning streak, Rutgers didn’t play No. 8 Maryland, No. 10 Indiana, or No. 12 Michigan (it lost its only game against Maryland earlier this season at home by four), but it has the formula to make a run in the Big Ten Tournament and even the NCAA Tournament. The Scarlet Knights lead the conference with just 56.2 points per game allowed and a 20.2 average scoring margin. With their vaunted stifling defense, they led the league with 12.7 steals per game (fifth in the nation), and has held opponents under their scoring average in 16 of the 17 games this season and 103 of its last 112 games dating back to 2017-18.
“I don't think we ever thought anything less even in the beginning, because we knew what we had and the potential we had going into this season,” senior Arella Guirantes said. “Sometimes we're our own worst enemy, and we realized that nothing can get in our way unless we get in our way. As soon as we control ourselves, I don't think anybody could stop us. That's just that.”
Come next week, the quarterfinal contest in the Big Ten Tournament will be Rutgers’ sixth in seven years. Being seeded high enough to get there without playing in the tournament beforehand is great, but it is now put up or shut up time, and the team knows that.
“I think the only thing that intensifies is the focus,” said Guirantes, who is nominated for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard Award, a candidate for the Wooden Award's Most Outstanding Player, the Wade and Naismith Trophies for National Player of the Year, the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award, and a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award bestowed for excellence in classroom, community, character and competition. “We have to just continue to be ourselves within our environment, regardless of the circumstances and how intense the game or the moment may feel. It's March, and you can feel a change of energy going into this month, and you know the postseason, sometimes the hoop just gets bigger, and everybody's playing off adrenaline.
"But that's when you have to be the most focused and the most disciplined. Being calmer will help you in the long run. So I think that as we go into this postseason, if we focus on the details and staying disciplined and being within ourselves, we're going to be fine. We'll be perfectly fine.”
While Rutgers surely would have liked to play more games in the Big Ten Tournament given it had to miss seven games, it will take the rest. Plus, with a NET Ranking at No. 11 and a seed somewhere projected to be in the five range, the NCAA Tournament is on the horizon.
“I just don't want to see the season come to an end,” Stringer told TKR. “I wish we were able to play all the games. We just have to take one game at a time. If you just love the game, and you just take each game one game at a time, the next thing you know, we can end up with a lot more games and championships. But we can't get ahead of ourselves. We just have to focus on what we have to do at the present. We'll get some rest and appreciate getting some rest and to sleep in. I'll be glad to sleep in. And then we will just wake up and get plenty of food and protect ourselves and, and just get pumped up and ready to go.”
Looking ahead, the NCAA Tournament will all be in San Antonio, TX. That means no trips out west to Spokane or various other places Stringer and the Scarlet Knights have had to travel to.
“We've been sent to some strange places. We've had times where my athletic directors were ashamed to even tell me where we were going. But we'll take on anybody at any place at any time,” Stringer said. “That's the same attitude that we have to approach it with this year. But having said that, at least we all know that we're going to be in one spot.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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