Rutgers men's hoops must clean up turnovers, defense going forward
To put it lightly, the Rutgers men’s basketball team had a game to forget on Tuesday in the loss at Purdue, 89-54. And that’s what the Scarlet Knights and coach Steve Pikiell did.
“You have to burn the tape and move on,” Pikiell said on Wednesday.
Through six Big Ten Conference games, Rutgers has one win and five losses. Its allowed 78, 69, 77, 61, 88, and 89 points in each of them respectively. It’s 77.0 points given up on average in conference is dead last. What makes matters worse is the fact that Rutgers is 12th out of 14 teams in scoring at 63.7 games (as of this writing on Wednesday afternoon).
In Pikiell’s first two seasons, the Scarlet Knights were able to slop up games with their stout defense. There are a lot of newcomers to the roster, which no doubt has been a factor on that end of the court, but Rutgers needs to get back to playing good defense in order to have a chance in big Ten contests due to its lack of ability to put the ball through the hoop consistently.
“We’ve shown signs of being a real good defensive team. We played two really good offensive teams. Purdue is good at home, I think they are 8-0. It’s tough for everybody. But, 88 points and 89 points on the road is no recipe to win,” Pikiell said
“I think we’re a good defensive team. We’ve got to get back to that. It starts with not turning the ball over. We’ve shown signs and we have to play that way especially at home and get back to old fashioned Rutgers defense. At times, we show we are elite defensively. But at the same time, we play in a very offensive league. We have to shut down guys, defend the 3-point line, and defend the post, too. We have to defend multiple things against teams in this league.”
As Pikiell mentioned, turnovers have been a killer for Rutgers. It had 10 in the first half alone on its way to 19 against the Boilermakers.
“Our turnovers...really hurt us,” Pikiell said. “It’s hard to defend turnovers when they go on the other end of the court and lay in.”
In conference play, Rutgers has 66 turnovers for 11.0 a game. Its opponents has coughed up the ball 53 times. Overall, the Scarlet Knights have committed 210 turnovers for 13.1 per game in 16 games.
“Yeah, we had times where we turned the ball over a lot. We kind of got through that. Early in the year, that was kind of one of our problems,” Pikiell said. “Lately, I thought we’ve been reasonable with our turnovers. But last night, we had 19 and even 20 when I watched the film. That’s not the recipe we want to have.”
The turnovers against Purdue came because of a new tactic the home team used. The Boilermakers started sending two guys to defend the paint and it caused issues.
“We had a lot of post turnovers. Teams are double-teaming us in the post now which is new. We’ll practice getting double teams. We hadn’t seen that,” Pikiell said. “And again, we have to do a better job getting a shot up every possession. That will help on both ends of the floor. We have a lot of guys contributing to the turnover department. We have to limit those.”
Cleaning up turnovers will be a key for the team prior to facing Northwestern on Friday night at the Rutgers Athletic Center.
After upsetting then-No. 16/17 Ohio State on Jan. 9, Rutgers lost Minnesota and Purdue by wide margins to stymie the momentum. But, both of those games are on the road, which is another animal. Now, Rutgers returns home for two straight games and will play in front of its fans.
“Everyone is disappointed. We want to play better. It’s a process and I’m the right coach,” Pikiell said. “I’ve been through all these kind of things. We’re playing in the best league in the country right now. We played four out of the top five teams in the conference standings. We just have to be patient. This is a team that’s growing and getting better. We’re a young team and we’re and exciting team. Some nights we’re going to look young, some nights we’re going to look good.
“We need the RAC to continue to be a hard place to play. Every place in our league that we’ve gone to is a really difficult place to play. Purdue had a huge home court advantage. They won 93 percent of their home games over the last four years in that gym. These are big challenges for us and we want to make the RAC a challenge for other teams to come to. It’s been a huge advantage for us, too, as we played throughout the season. We need the RAC to be packed. I’m excited about Northwestern. Our guys will be ready to play and we’ll be who gets a new career-high on Friday night. That’s the exciting part of where we are right now.”
Follow Chris Nalwasky on Twitter @ChrisWasky.