1/4/2021 basketball Edit

The Monday Morning Step-Back: RHoops goes 1-1 this past week

Craig Epstein

Staff Writer

Splitting their two games against Purdue and Iowa, this past week was one where you had to take the good with the bad. Despite beating a good Boilermaker squad without the team’s best player Ron Harper Jr., Rutgers fell just short of knocking off No. 10 Iowa thanks in large part to some missed free throws.

“It was one of our huge keys to win the free-throw line battle, obviously we didn’t,” Head Coach Steve Pikiell said in his postgame press conference. “They do a lot of things well too, they shoot threes, they make free-throws, they offensive rebound, so we did a lot of good things in a lot of different areas, but we certainly didn’t win the battle of the free-throw line and that was a big key to us going into the game.”

SIGN UP FOR PREMIUM NOW AND GET 30 DAYS FREE — CLICK HERE FOR MORE!!

However, on a more positive note this game saw the return of junior guard Caleb McConnell. Picking up his first 11 minutes of game action this season, McConnell seems to need to shake off the cobwebs as he shot 0-5 from the field and missed his only three-point attempt.

“We got some good news with Caleb McConnell returning, he’ll be a really good addition,” Pikiell said. “Got to get him back into game shape, but we played really hard, we had chances. They were one possession better.”

Despite his less than stellar performance against Iowa, McConnell has proven he is a reliable presence for the Scarlet Knights, especially on the defensive side of the ball. So, with the amount of injuries Rutgers has had to deal with so far this season, having the Jacksonville native back in the lineup will provide the team with some much-needed depth.

“I thought our guys were locked in,” Pikiell continued. “I thought we saw some tough shots that they had to take, we tracked down some balls that were scouting report steals, but again they’re a really good basketball team, we are a really good basketball team we can defend and this just shows you can hold a team 20 points under their average, but again they were one possession better.”

If anybody needed any reminders, this past week showed that even while short handed Rutgers can compete against and/or beat just about any team in the Big Ten. And now with McConnell back in the fold and freshman forward Dean Reiber seemingly stepping up his game, the Scarlet Knights are growing into a team that could make some serious noise late into the season. Now, they will just have to work on those dang free throws.