Paul Mulcahy does a little bit of everything in impressive Rutgers debut

Freshman guard Paul Mulcahy was one of the most hyped incoming freshman to come to Rutgers in a long time. He committed to the school back in May of 2018 and stayed solid with his decision ever since.

On Thursday night, the former four-star prospect from Gill St. Bernard’s (Gladstone, N.J) by way of Bayonne made his college debut as the Rutgers men’s team squeaked out a 73-71 victory against Bryant at the RAC.

“It’s nice to get one under the belt,” Mulcahy told TKR. “There’s a lot to learn from today. We are going to watch a lot of film together and breakdown where we can be better like coach (Steve) Pikiell said. “It was nice to be able to get a win under my belt. We are going to learn from today and we are going to be better. We know what we have to work on. We talked about it right away in the locker room. So, we are going to bounce back.”

Almost immediately after checking into the game, Mulcahy scored a quick layup on a fast break pass from Geo Baker.

“I had some jitters coming into the game. I mean, I was excited,” he said. “Geo just made a real nice pass and I just ran the floor as hard as I could. It was a nice way to get myself into the game.”

Baker thought overall Mulcahy, who had eight points of 3-of-5 shooting, three rebounds, and three assists in almost 20 minutes, had a nice debut.

“He’s a winner. He made some plays,” Baker said of the freshman. “I thought he played a really good game today. He’s only going to get better.”

Not too long after his first points, Mulcahy threw a dime of his own up to big man Myles Johnson for the alley-oop on a pick-and-roll. (SEEN ABOVE)

“We had a lot more size than they did, so I had Myles try to come up and see what he can do,” Mulcahy said. “The middle was wide open and I just threw it up to him. We definitely could’ve got Myles some more touches, but it was just the way it went.”

Mulcahy made a 3-pointer - his first - from the top of the key early in the second half to give the Scarlet Knights a 55-39 lead at the time. Moments later, he put up another one that sailed wide right.

“I forced a three, it was like a heat check, but I thought did what I had to do,” Mulcahy said.

The 6-foot-6 guard finished with a team-best plus/minus of plus-12.

“I tried to bring a lot of energy and I tried to make everyone better and stuff like that,” Mulcahy said.

One of the promotions for the contest was a giveaway headband. Mulcahy wears one every game and as a recruit, “Headband highlights” became his claim to fame.

“It was awesome and it was cool to see the whole headband thing. Someone gave me one so I just swapped headbands. There was a lot of love and it was fun when the RAC is packed,” Mulcahy said. “I found out about a day-and-half ago. I have a lot of love here. My family came and I have people I don’t even know supporting me.”