Harper, Young pick up slack without Geo Baker as Rutgers handles FDU

 

Jacob Young stepped up in place of Geo Baker, scoring 24 points and adding seven assists in Rutgers’ win over FDU. (Photo by Rich Graesele/Rutgers Athletics)

No Geo Baker, no problem.

After Rutgers’ star point guard left the first half of Wednesday's season opener against Sacred Heart with a sprained ankle, the lead story heading into the Scarlet Knights’ showdown with in-state rival Fairleigh Dickinson Friday was that of who would fill the void left by the senior leader and preseason all-Big Ten Conference honoree.

As it turned out, one man’s absence made the hearts — and games — of two of his teammates grow fonder.

Tasked with the duty of running the offense in Baker’s stead, Jacob Young delivered to the tune of a Rutgers career-high 24 points, and dished seven assists in the process as the Scarlet Knights, ranked 24th in the nation, disposed of FDU in convincing fashion, improving to 2-0 with a commanding 96-75 victory in Piscataway.

For good measure, Ron Harper, Jr. set a career best of his own with 30 markers as he and Young combined to shoot 22-for-33 from the floor while the deep Rutgers rotation wore down an undermanned FDU roster as the game wore on, collectively raising its productivity to spell Baker.

“Like Coach preaches, he’ll say when one man goes down, the next man’s gotta be ready,” Young said of the mindset among Rutgers’ backcourt. “I see the guys coming off the bench behind Geo, they just want the opportunity. They’re going to play hard, like in practice every day. That’s the way I see it.”

“We ask him to do a lot,” Steve Pikiell admitted with regard to Young, a workload multiplied by Baker’s injury. “He plays with great energy. I think whenever you have an obstacle like Geo being out, you don’t want to go through it, but it gives other guys opportunities to step up and play more minutes, and hopefully take advantage of it. I think our guards are doing a good job, but they’ve got to keep staying the course and keep getting better.”

Rutgers did exactly that even after FDU (0-2) landed several body blows on the Scarlet Knights in the first half, leading by as many as seven points and making seven of its first ten shots as sophomore guard Brandon Rush scored 13 points in the opening stanza to offset an ineffective Jahlil Jenkins. A 21-2 run by the hosts over a span of 6:02 as the half wound down swung the pendulum for good, and after spotting the visiting Knights their torrid start, Rutgers conceded only six field goals of FDU’s ensuing 27 attempts for a scant 22 percent figure. Then, after Pikiell motivated Montez Mathis to do more following a lethargic opening frame, the junior guard responded, galvanizing a crisper effort that saw the Scarlet Knights assert themselves more on the defensive end while cleaning up their ball handling to commit just five turnovers in the second half after registering twice as many giveaways in the first 20 minutes.

“I’ll tell you what: I love him, but I challenged him,” Pikiell recollected. “I thought he played tremendous defense in the second half and really made it hard on Jenkins. Rush is a quick guard too and he can really score, but I thought Montez did a really good job of kind of shutting him down on that end of the floor and giving us some good minutes.”

“We were a little sloppy today, obviously. Today in the first half, we didn’t do a great job in that area. We’ve got to do a better job of handling the ball and making great decisions, but I loved the second half. I thought our defense was better, I thought we rebounded better and I thought we took care of the ball better. It was a good sign, and we need that to happen.”

Then, there was Harper. The native New Jerseyan, who has made a career of ramping up his own performance when the chips are down, authored more of the same Friday night, feeding off Young’s uptick in tempo with a variety of slashing drives and timely 3-point shots en route to his highest point output on the banks.

Ron Harper, Jr. set new career-high with 30 points Friday. (Photo by Rich Graesele/Rutgers Athletics)

“With no fans being there, we gotta create our own energy on the court and on the bench,” Harper stated when asked if his mindset changed going into this season. “I feel like our bench and our coaches do a great job of creating energy for us, and the players on the court feed off that. It’s a weird time to adjust to, but I think we’re doing just fine.”

“Ron, we need that from him,” Pikiell gushed. “I wish we could get that from him every night, but tonight, he was special. He made threes, he could post up, he could do a lot of things. He’s a tough guy to guard, and we need that, especially without Geo being in uniform.”

Speaking of Baker, it seems unlikely that he will return in the near future, as his sprained ankle will hold him out of Sunday’s matchup against Hofstra, and possibly the marquee non-conference game on the schedule against Syracuse a week from Tuesday.

“He’s in a boot now,” Pikiell said, offering an update on Baker’s progression. “There’s not a whole lot to report, but he’s not going to play anytime soon. We’ve just got to keep him in the training room and get him as much treatment as we can, but the boot will be on for a little bit here.”

But while he may not be actively involved in the actual gameplay, he continues to make his presence felt just as he did last year when rehabbing a thumb injury, furthering the next-man-up mentality among this group.

“Just like last year when Geo went down, he’s like an extra coach on the sideline,” Harper proclaimed. “He’s always telling us what we need to do better from what he sees on the bench, and most importantly, he’s telling the guys he believes in them. He believes that anybody can step in and provide an impact.”

“With him out, he always just tells us next man up. I gotta credit him for that, and he gives us a lot of confidence to go out and get it done.”