Rutgers hits road for first time as league play begins
So far, so good for the Rutgers men’s basketball program, which is fresh off of a huge, nationally televised win over Syracuse that extended a fourgame, season-opening winning streak.
That early cushion may come in handy, however.
The Scarlet Knights are set to begin a 20-game stretch of Big Ten play with a visit to Maryland on Monday night, and will have to scratch and claw for every win in a conference that features, No. 21 Rutgers included, no fewer than six nationally ranked teams.
“We’re entering a league that just has challenges all over the place,” said Scarlet Knights head coach Steve Pikiell on a Friday Webex conference call with reporters.
“It’s an unbelievable league, and every team plays differently. We’ll go from Maryland’s style, to Illinois’ style in a couple days to Ohio State’s style; three completely different styles, and all very good teams… huge test coming up here, first league game. But, I feel like we’ll be well prepared.”
They’ll need to be.
Although the Terrapins aren’t one of those six teams currently in the Top 25 — stunningly, the conference features three of the top-six programs in the country with No. 3 Iowa, No. 4 Michigan State and No. 6 Illinois, while No. 13 Wisconsin and No. 22 Ohio State round out those currently ranked — they did earn a share of the regular season conference championship last year before COVID-19 concerns shut down the tournament, and are also off to an impressive 4-1 start.
It’s also the Scarlet Knights’ first road game on the year, and Rutgers has yet to beat Maryland outside of the RAC since joining the Big Ten prior to the 2014-15 season. However, just as was the case prior to beating the Orange for the first time since 2003 during last Tuesday’s annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge game, Pikiell’s group remains confident heading into yet another big test.
“They’ve been in a good mindset, and they’re excited about playing games, that’s a big part of it,” he said. “They know how good Maryland is, and they know how tough of a place it is down there to play…in light that we don’t have two of our veteran guys that would add even more to that confidence and more to our experience, I think the experienced guys have really helped the younger guys.
“We’ve got four young guys in our rotation, so we’re getting a feel for those guys, but confidence has never really been an issue here. We think these guys are really confident; Jacob (Young) is playing really good basketball, Montez (Mathis), Paul (Mulcahy),
Ron (Harper, Jr.), Myles (Johnson)…they’ve got a good feel and they know who they are.”
While the program has been able to plan for junior guard Caleb McConnell taking a medical redshirt, which he announced in early October, the Scarlet Knights may still be without star senior guard Geo Baker at tip-off on Monday. As of Pikiell’s last public comments on Friday afternoon, Baker has still yet to practice after suffering a left ankle injury in the first half of the November 25 season opener against Sacred Heart, but he was hopeful there could be a chance he’d be available to play.
“He’s done a good job with this sprain — it was a high ankle sprain, and that’s not good — but we’ll see how he is,” Pikiell said. “It’s real hard to get yourself ready in two days for Maryland, but I’m hoping he can get through some part of practice (Friday), that would be a real big step for us.”