3/5/2022 basketball Edit

Rutgers Hoops to honor Caleb McConnell as part of Senior Day on Sunday

Craig Epstein • TheKnightReport

Staff Writer

With Rutgers set to honor its Senior class on Sunday, one could make the case that nobody embodies what the program has become more than Caleb McConnell. Coming in as a 6’4” 175 lbs. three-star recruit out of SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, McConnell made the decision to come to Piscataway at a time when the Scarlet Knights were not viewed as the go-to desitinaton.

“I knew coming here it wasn’t going to be easy,” McConnell said. “I always knew that I was going to have to fight and work for what I get. That’s something Coach [Steve] Pikiell preached to me even before I showed up to campus and I feel like that’s something he preached to all the guys he recruited.”

Finishing his freshman year 14-17 (7-13 Big Ten) and tied for tenth in the Big Ten, McConnell could feel the tide start to turn for a program that had won seven combined conference games in its previous three seasons.

“After freshman year I feel like we just so much grittier and learned so much,” he continued. “Pikiell has installed in us so much fight on and off the court and I feel like that just helped carry us through these years and now we know what it takes to win. I feel like that’s what we do here, we just grind it out no matter what.”

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Not only has McConnell been a part of a Rutgers squad that made its first trip to the NCAA Tournament in 30 years, but he now finds himself as a semifinalist for the Naismith Men’s Defensive Player of the Year award and a leading candidate for the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year.

“I feel like I stepped up to that role this summer,” he said. “I told Pikiell I wanted to be defensive player of the year because I knew that would help us. I love my identity and being able to take on that challenge but I feel like I’m not done here yet and have so much more room to grow.”

While he leads the conference in steals, perhaps his most notable defensive play of the season came when chased down Ohio State’s Zed Key for a key block that kept the Scarlet Knights within four en route to their 66-64 victory.

If there is anything McConnell will regret when his time on the banks is done, it is that he cannot spend more time with a program he feels will continue to improve.

“I wish we had more time because if we did this program would only go up,” he said. “But I’m happy to be a part of this program and happy we could change this program’s culture. I feel like this is our most skilled and well-put-together team, even though it may not show now it will show in the younger guys as they start to come up and mature.”

In a college basketball landscape where switching teams has never been easier, McConnell feels his journey at Rutgers has not only made him a better player, but person as well.

“Staying the course is the whole idea of life, if you want to move up sometimes you just got to stay the course because not everything is going to be given,” he explained. “Now that I’m a senior I can look can back and say I stuck with it. It would’ve been easier for me to transfer to a smaller school and play more and get other accolades but I feel like I just grinded it out and persevered through all the setbacks. It hasn’t been easy but it’s been fun and I’m looking to go out with a bang.”

Whether or not this will be McConnell’s final season with the scarlet and white is yet to be determined. However, right now the focus for the Jacksonville native is on one thing: winning.

“I would love to play in the league or overseas that’s always been my dream,” he said. “We’ll see what it brings, I know winning will take care of everything so I feel like we just got to focus on winning.”