Myles Johnson raises Boardwalk Trophy as Rutgers overpowered Seton Hall in annual Garden State Hardwood Classic Saturday. (Photo by Jaden Daly/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Entering Saturday’s clash with forever rival Seton Hall, Rutgers’ rally cry on social media was a three-word play on a traditional Christmas tune.
Deck the Hall.
The holiday came early for red-and-white-clad fans, who comprised the majority of a capacity crowd at the RAC, receiving as a premature stocking stuffer the present of the Scarlet Knights’ most decisive victory over the visiting Pirates since 1998, when most of the players on the floor for either side had not even been born yet.
Scoring the game’s first 14 points and stretching its run out to 26-5 eleven minutes later, Rutgers (8-3) jumped on the accelerator and never looked back, scoring a stunning 68-48 knockout of a Seton Hall team ranked 22nd in the nation and undermanned in the wake of forward Sandro Mamukelashvili being unavailable after undergoing surgery earlier in the week to repair a broken wrist that is expected to sideline him into late January, perhaps even February.
A slow start in which the Pirates (6-4) missed all but one of their first 17 field goal attempts did not improve much as the afternoon transitioned into night, as Myles Powell drew a charge and then collided with teammate Tyrese Samuel late in the first half, suffering a concussion that sent the Trenton native to the locker room immediately, rendering him unavailable for the conclusion to an eventual Rutgers runaway and placing his status for Thursday’s home matchup with Top 10 program Maryland in limbo.
Powell’s health will be one of many concerns for Kevin Willard as Big East play beckons, but the story of the day was that of Rutgers and its tour de force on both ends of the floor, a performance that leads off our five thoughts as we fill in for Jason Guerette with our postgame analysis:
1) Garden Statement
The 20-point victory for Rutgers is the largest margin of victory over a ranked team in program history, and it was one in which the Scarlet Knights picked up right where they left off Wednesday night against Wisconsin, a contest that saw a fast start in its own right — Rutgers opened the gates to the tune of a 9-0 run at the expense of the Badgers — and culminated in an aggressive defensive stand that sealed up a resilient victory. On this day, though, the hustle was just as integral even in the face of a commanding win.
“We were locked in today,” Steve Pikiell said of his team’s effort and commitment to execution. “I loved our defense from the opening tip, and every guy contributed. Every guy did what they needed to do. (We had) two days to prepare for a really good team, so I was worried about that, but we were locked in from the opening tip and we played really well on both ends of the floor.”
“It was unexpected, to be honest,” Geo Baker said of the sizzling start, which prompted Willard to call a timeout less than three minutes into the first half. “This game is always a dogfight, and you’ve got to give those guys a lot of credit. They already had one of their best players out, then their best player goes out and they’re still fighting to the last second. It was definitely crazy just to go up that big. I was still nervous, just counting down the seconds.”
Aside from the margin on the scoreboard, two other sets of numbers told the story. Not only did Rutgers overpower Seton Hall on the glass in a 46-29 rebounding edge, the Scarlet Knights flexed the same muscle in the lane with the basketball in their hands, outscoring the Pirates in the paint, 32-18, in a style that epitomizes Pikiell basketball. And other than Quincy McKnight, the Pirates shot just 5-for-23 from three-point range as a perimeter game that becomes even more important in Mamukelashvili’s absence did not fire for large portions of the day.
2) Myles Away
Powell scored six points, and was trying to will Seton Hall into an offensive rhythm before his fateful exit with 3:56 remaining in the opening stanza. In his absence, the Pirates were not completely stagnant, showing sparks to pull within 13 points in the second half, but could not finish the rally.
“He has a pretty bad concussion,” Willard revealed after the game, after it had become apparent that Powell was being tended to in the locker room by trainer Tony Testa. “He took the charge and whacked his head on the floor, and then him and Tyrese ran into each other. He asked me during the game, he goes, ‘Why are we practicing at Rutgers?’ And we sat down in the timeout, and his eyes kind of just rolled into the back of his head.”
“Coming out of halftime without Myles was really tough for us,” Quincy McKnight admitted. “We came down, I did see him and Tyrese kind of bump into each other a little bit, we came down and I called out a play, and he kind of just looked at me, he was holding his face. I thought he and ‘Rese had ran into each other, he might have gotten poked in the eye, something like that. I was getting water in the timeout and Coach had told me I was back in the game. I was looking around to see who I was subbing in for, and he said it was an injury sub. A couple of minutes later, we still didn’t see him, and at halftime, we went into the locker room and he was out of it. He didn’t know who we were.”
Powell’s availability for Thursday’s meeting with Maryland, a return game from one the Pirates defeated the Terrapins in on the road last December, is in question, but know this: Powell will not go quietly, having come back from a sprained ankle to score 37 points against Michigan State five days later. Willard will err on the side of caution, and rightfully so, but one should not count No. 13 out until a definitive word from the school comes out.
3) Yeboah Constrictor
Now two games into an expanded role in the starting lineup, Akwasi Yeboah is slowly showing his larger audience the skill set that made him one of the most impactful players in the America East Conference, where he plied his wares at Stony Brook — recruited by Pikiell and Jay Young before the latter assumed the reins at Fairfield — prior to landing on the banks of the old Raritan as a graduate transfer this spring.
“I thought he was a bigger difference than anybody,” Willard said of Yeboah, praising the Englishman as a difference-maker that Rutgers may not have had last season. “He’s such a smart player and he’s a veteran guy. I just thought the way he can spread guys out and the way Steve has kind of gone away from what they were doing earlier in the season, putting a lot of pressure on your pick-and-roll defense, having him out there, you can just tell he’s a fifth-year guy and he just knows what to do.”
“He’s just mature,” Pikiell expounded. “He just gives us a maturity about him, and he can really shoot the ball. He can do a lot of different things, but his maturity has really helped. He’s locked in, they love him. I think these guys are really enjoying what he brings, and he’s figuring it out, too. He’s been a really nice addition.”
As an added bonus, Baker — a co-captain along with Yeboah — has made joint strides in encompassing the multiple facets of being a leader.
“Man, Geo took a big step,” Caleb McConnell gushed, heralding Baker’s role as an elder statesman on the Scarlet Knights’ roster. “Geo, from last year to this year, he’s made a big leap in being a leader and keeping the team in it.”
4) Where To From Here?
Somewhat buried behind the news of Powell’s concussion was Seton Hall’s sluggish start, and what the Pirates will do with Samuel and Jared Rhoden as the duo fills in for Mamukelashvili in the foreseeable future. McKnight was asked what was needed to do to get his team to regroup, a question Willard got out in front of, but offered a brutally honest insight into what went wrong at the beginning of the game.
“It’s tough, this atmosphere,” the senior point guard surmised. “They came out, threw the first punch, and just had us on our heels the whole game.”
“They just jumped on us,” Willard concurred. “I didn’t do a very good job of getting these guys ready for this atmosphere. I didn’t do a good enough job of just getting them to understand what this game and this atmosphere’s like. I’ve been here 13 times, I should have done a better job.”
As far as addressing the second frontcourt spot next to the platoon of Romaro Gill and Ike Obiagu, Willard was matter-of-fact in addressing its importance, but also admitted that asking Samuel and Rhoden to produce at Mamukelashvili’s level is too much, too soon.
“To expect them to fill the role that we had put Sandro in, in the matter of a week, is just unrealistic expectations,” he conceded. “They’re going to get it and it’s going to be really good, but I just have to be patient. They’re both capable, but to ask them to do what I asked Sandro to do is just impossible right now, and I’ve got to figure it out.”
5) Circle of Life
The atmosphere inside the RAC, from a full and amped-up student section 30 minutes before the opening tip to a halftime speech from returning football coach Greg Schiano, wherein he implored the Rutgers community for its support in revitalizing not just his own program, but the school’s entire athletic force as well, showed just how special Piscataway could be when firing on all cylinders. Throw in Myles Johnson feeling “like Simba” when holding up the Boardwalk Trophy in the midst of a court storm — the second in three years — and you have a feel for just how much this win resonates, maybe more so than some others.
“The building was great,” Pikiell recalled. “When the RAC is jumping like that, all the good things you saw about Rutgers University today, everyone comes together, and my team’s coming together. We could do some really nice things.”
“Bringing this one home meant a lot to me,” said Ron Harper, Jr., a New Jersey native who sat behind the bench two years ago as a recruit when the Scarlet Knights — just as they did Saturday — knocked off a ranked Seton Hall team. “This one definitely feels special, being a kid from Jersey, going to the Rutgers-Seton Hall games when they were in the Big East, this is a dream come true. It just means the world to me.”
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