Rutgers celebrated its thrilling win at Indiana on Wednesday on the court of Assembly Hall. It probably did some more celebrating in the locker room afterwards. The plane ride back to New Jersey was likely enjoyable as well.
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But now that a new day has arrived, the Scarlet Knights have flipped the page to Penn State. Rutgers hosts the Nittany Lions at Jersey Mike's Arena in Piscataway on Sunday at noon.
The game also marks Rutgers' Senior Day. Program changers Geo Baker, Ron Harper Jr., and Caleb McConnell will be honored as will walk-on Luke Nathan and graduate transfer Ralph Gonzales-Agee.
"I hope to celebrate those guys," Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell said. "They came when people weren't coming to Rutgers. They took on that challenge. They're playing in the toughest league in the country with as good of coaches and players as there are night in and night out. These guys have raised our program. They've graduated or graduating and they're in grad school and come from great families. They're on the Dean's List. They're great representatives of Rutgers. Our fans have been great and I know they will come out and they're gonna be loud and proud."
Rutgers was viewed by many entering the Indiana game as one of the last handful of teams out of the NCAA Tournament. The win over Hoosiers gave the Scarlet Knights a much-needed Quad 1 road win and got them back on the proverbial "bubble".
Rutgers is now 17-12 overall, 11-8 in the Big Ten, and 4-9 in away contests. It is 6-5 in Quad 1 games and owns three Quad 2 wins and three more Quad 3 triumphs.
The season looked like a lost cause after losses to Lafayette, DePaul, and UMass. But then, after a COVID pause, Rutgers bounced back and picked up a couple of wins. More defeats happened against teams it should have won against such as Minnesota and Northwestern and even Maryland. Rutgers, though, responded by doing what no team has done before in NCAA history to save its season, knock-off four ranked foes in as many games as an unranked team team itself.
The momentum came to half after losses to Wisconsin and Michigan, but the win over the Hoosiers should start it back up.
With tournament talk surrounding the program, the players try not to get swept up by it.
"It's hard to not think about it especially this season we had with a lot of ups and downs, but we control our own destiny," Harper Jr. said. "People told us our season was dead every month of the season, so we just keep pushing and fighting. We're not looking at the tournament, we're looking at Penn State and we're just trying to go in there on senior night and get a win It's going to be a really special day for everything that we built here. We're just looking forward to that."
it is the third season in a row that Rutgers was able to win late in the year on the road to improve its tournament resume. Rutgers topped Purdue at Mackey Arena before COVID shut the word down in 2020, it defeated Minnesota in crunch time a year ago, and now it beat the Hoosiers for the fifth-consecutive time.
"I think we're just all fighters," Geo Baker said. "We knew we had to just dig deep and find a way to get a win. Its right down to the wire, and it's been like that much the past three years. We have our sense of urgency, and we are just trying to find ways to win. We feel like we deserve it. We've worked for it. We want to finish strong."
The team has preached taking it one day at a time and one game at a time. Caleb McConnell recently said practices have become more locked in.
The Scarlet Knights know what's at stake. They set out to make the NCAA Tournament again in the preseason, and now they have their shot.
"Our mindset is to go 1-0 every day. I feel like we had two good practices, and then I feel like we came in here and we really executed the game plan in the second half. We kept fighting," Harper Jr. said. "We faced adversity, and we just we just kept going. We leaned on each other when it got hard. We got to win today and that's all that matters. So after this, we're just gonna take it one day at a time again.
"They beat us pretty good at their own floor, so we're looking to get some vengeance."
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisNalwasky.
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