After massive leap forward last year, Pikiell excited to see how Rutgers handles expectations

 

Steve Pikiell shepherded incredible growth last season at Rutgers, and will now guide Scarlet Knights into a year of many question marks with significant and real hype. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

Save all the jokes about Rutgers.

The punchlines and cannon fodder that populated the banks of the old Raritan for years are dead and buried now, replaced by real punches and cannon fire from a scrappy outfit in the image of its born fighter of a head coach, a group that would have reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nearly three decades had COVID-19 not imposed its path of destruction seven months ago.

The circumstances in which Rutgers reached the precipice of something special only to have it ripped away beyond its control are still a burning fire, but as life and basketball have begun the nascent stages of resumption, so too have the Scarlet Knights in turning the page to bigger and better, and to finish what was started last season.

“It was kind of surreal,” Steve Pikiell recounted when assessing the confluence of events that swept basketball off its collective feet and into a tsunami of an international crisis, made even more incomprehensible by the normalcy just hours prior to the NCAA’s cancellation of the remainder of the 2019-20 season on March 12. “I thought we were going to play that day with no fans, and then right before tipoff, they canceled that. Never in my wildest imagination did I realize the NCAA Tournament (would be canceled). It was kind of bizarre, and obviously something you’re not prepared for, but it was a big step for our program in a lot of ways.”

“To have 20 wins, a winning season, we were going to be in the NCAA Tournament, we were ranked in a year where the league commissioner (Jim Delany) said it was the best year in the Big Ten in basketball. To do those things — and I’m thankful that Akwasi Yeboah and Shaq Carter were part of building the program — this is who we are now. We’re a team that’s going to compete.”

Rutgers enters a year of unknowns with one proven quantity, that of being the hunted as opposed to a perennial hunter. No one is sleeping on the Scarlet Knights this season, as everyone other than Yeboah and Carter returns to Piscataway, with senior Geo Baker leading a cadre is guards while Ron Harper and Myles Johnson continue to develop in the frontcourt while simultaneously mentoring a four-man freshman class who could be thrown into the fire sooner rather than later depending on how Pikiell and his staff can navigate the pandemic with a deep and talented roster.

“When you have continuity and consistency in your program, I think it’s a huge thing,” Pikiell said. “We’re doing stuff now that we wouldn’t have gotten to until November with what we’re doing in practice already. Having veteran guys that know you and the expectations of your program — on and off the court — really helps, especially during an unprecedented pandemic.”

The experience in the program has already proven to be a life-saver to some degree this offseason, as Caleb McConnell recently announced his intent to take a medical redshirt this year and resume his eligibility in 2021-22. Without McConnell, who was one of Rutgers’ better on-ball defenders last season, Baker will still be the focal point on both sides of the floor, but will not have to go it alone, having the luxury of leaning on fellow backcourt partners Montez Mathis, Paul Mulcahy and Jacob Young.

“We’ve had good depth, and you’re going to need more depth this year than ever before,” said Pikiell. “You’re going to go through quarantines and days off, and even when a kid has symptoms, they put him on the list. So I think just having the depth bodes well for us. Paul Mulcahy can run the point, Jacob Young can run the point, Geo can run the point, and they can all play off the ball too. I like the multi-position guys we have, during a pandemic certainly with the obstacles we’re going to face with it. It’s great to be able to move guys around. Ron Harper can run the point for us, too. I’m excited to have guys who don’t just play one position.”

On top of the depth, the suffocating defense that has been a longtime calling card of every Pikiell team remains as stingy as ever, and to no surprise, the architect of it believes it is capable of improvement.

“You know what? I thought we made a really huge step last year defensively,” Pikiell said of the commitment to defense, spearheaded by Harper and Mathis. “I thought we did more, I thought our guys got a better grasp of what we want to do. This year, we’ve put in a lot more things that we couldn’t do last year because we had a lot of newcomers. We’re doing more things with our defense, which is really good. I think we can improve a lot in that area even though people give me the metrics on that. I just know we can do a lot more because we’re a veteran team now, because I’m not teaching things for the first time to guys. I can implement more defenses and do some more full-court stuff, some more trapping, those kinds of things. I’m excited about the improvements we can make on that end of the floor, so I look forward to growing in that area.”

As the ball is tipped for the first time on November 25, two major factors will affect Rutgers, the first being the lack of fans in the stands at the RAC, where the Scarlet Knights fed off raucous crowds en route to an 18-1 home record laced with upset victories over Wisconsin, Penn State, Indiana, Purdue and Maryland. The second is the first dose of legitimate buzz around the program, something that has not existed in quite some time at the State University of New Jersey, which means the motivational ploy of reminding the team that it was picked twelfth in the Big Ten last season no longer applies.

“We’re not going to have the advantage of having people at the RAC, which is so disappointing,” Pikiell reflected. “We’ve creates such a great environment here and I’m going to miss all the people at the RAC, but we also play in the toughest league in the country, and when you go on the road to Indiana, it’s packed, Purdue is packed. You’re not going to have to face that on the road like you did in the past and you’re not going to get that advantage at home. If you can keep your roster COVID-free, that’s going to be the most important thing, how you navigate this pandemic. That’s going to be more important this year than ever before.”

“I also just think we have to play with expectations. We’ve never been in that place before, where now we’re expected to be good. Can we play under the expectations? We try to have our own expectations internally, but how much of the phone are these guys going to let affect what we do? If we can navigate all those things, I think we have a chance to have a really good season, and hopefully Rutgers basketball is like this every year, with these expectations every year.”