2/11/2021 basketball Edit

Three Thoughts on Rutgers Hoops recent loss over Iowa

Craig Epstein

Staff Writer

The winning streak ends at four for Rutgers as the Scarlet Knights fell to Iowa 79-66 to drop to an overall record of 11-7 and 7-7 in the Big Ten.

Here are three thoughts after the game:

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SETTING THE TONE EARLY

In several of Rutgers’ victories during the four-game win streak, the Scarlet Knights would jump out to an early lead and set the tone for how they were going to attack their opponent. However, whatever type of game plan Rutgers had coming into this matchup quickly went out the window as both Myles Johnson and Cliff Omoruyi found themselves in foul trouble early.

“Obviously a real tough game tonight,” Head Coach Steve Pikiell said in his postgame press conference. “Give Iowa a ton of credit, they are a tough team, the best offensive team in the league and our defense wasn’t up to where it needed to be today.”

Johnson picking up two fouls in the first 70 seconds of a game is something that cannot happen if Rutgers hopes to come away with a win, especially when they are facing somebody as talented as Luka Garza. While the relationship between Johnson and the Big Ten officials is tenuous at best, at some point they are going to have to come to a resolution so that the big man does not end up playing just 12 minutes against a quality team like Iowa.

THREE IS THE LONLIEST NUMBER

Despite losing by 13, the Scarlet Knights did not play a terrible game considering where they were early and continued to fight until the bitter end. However, there is one stat line that is going to stick out like a sore thumb: 6-of-28 from three.

“I wanted to get to the free-throw line, you don’t get to the free-throw line when you shoot threes,” Pikiell said. “That’s way too many threes for us and we talked about that before the game. Our shot selection wasn’t good and it has to be good against a team like this.”

On the flip side, Iowa ended the day shooting 11-23 from three, including five from Joe Wieskamp who finished with a season-high 26 points and 10 rebounds. Also, Rutgers got outrebounded 42-31 with the Hawkeyes getting 16 offensive boards compared to the Scarlet Knights’ 11.

STILL IN SEARCH OF RON HARPER JR.

While Ron Harper Jr. came into the season playing like a National Player of the Year contender, his performance over the last handful of games has taken a turn for the worse. Finishing the game shooting 4-of-9 for nine points, the junior missed all four of his three-point attempts and is 0-16 from deep in his last four games.

“He does a lot of things for us,” Pikiell said. “Life isn’t easy in this league, when you have a good game the team you play next is going to make sure that you don’t have one. Ron’s learning to live as the top guy on the scouting report.”

Although Rutgers has other avenues they can turn to for scoring (i.e. Geo Baker and Jacob Young), if they are going to reach their full potential at some point they will need Harper Jr. to return to the type of player he was in the first month of the season.

Rutgers will return to action when they come back home to take on Northwestern at the RAC on Saturday, Feb. 13 at 5 p.m. (ET) on BTN.