Rutgers’ seniors go out in blaze of glory after double-OT epic

Geo Baker (0), Ron Harper, Jr. (24) and Caleb McConnell (22) react as their careers ended in heartbreak after Rutgers’ double-overtime loss to Notre Dame. (Photo by Aaron Doster/Associated Press)

Steve Pikiell called it the best team he had had in his time on the banks, a proclamation that was initially met with derision and the belief that the Rutgers coach was insulating his locker room against the potential to underachieve. Yet after a rocky start Wednesday gave way to an inspired stretch drive, it turned out that his effusive praise was validated.

The Scarlet Knights acquitted themselves as well as possible Wednesday night against Notre Dame, doing just enough — or so it seemed — to hold the Fighting Irish at bay. Through Caleb McConnell’s magnificent first half in his return to the place his career began, to Geo Baker and Ron Harper, Jr. dazzling UD Arena with one last flurry of clutch shots, it looked for all the world that Rutgers would will itself to another blue-collar win to give its seniors one more game Friday against Alabama. Alas, it was Paul Atkinson’s offensive rebound and putback through traffic that served as the coup de grace in an 89-87 loss that required two overtime periods to reach a conclusion that left Rutgers in heartbreak for a second consecutive year, but also grateful for what it had the chance to accomplish in one of the better rebuilding jobs college basketball has seen in the last quarter-century.

“It's a lot of pain right now,” a visibly distraught Baker admitted after his final act in a Scarlet Knight uniform ended with one clutch shot after another. “I don't really know what to say. Caleb said it best in the locker room, just telling these guys to cherish this moment, cherish college basketball because it feels like we were just freshmen yesterday. We've got a special brotherhood now that's never going to change, that's never going to end, but playing in that game was really special. That's what March is about. We just came up short.”

“We built so much,” McConnell reflected. “But everything has to come to an end. I'm just glad that I was able to do it with these guys, because these guys are amazing. It's bigger than basketball. It just sucks it had to end this way.”

McConnell carried the torch in the first half for the Scarlet Knights, playing off the emotion of returning to Dayton, where he had spent a majority of his childhood with his father while his mother remained in their native Jacksonville. The gritty wing, who worked his way from blue-collar prospect to Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, had 18 points for Rutgers at the intermission on the way to a 23-point, 11-rebound double-double, his crafty layup beating the first-half buzzer to put the Scarlet Knights ahead by five, at 41-36, and shift the momentum back toward New Jersey.

But Notre Dame would not go away, answering Rutgers with a run in the middle of the second half where Pikiell had Aundre Hyatt and Mawot Mag on the floor in an effort to preserve his starters. Atkinson (26 points on 13-of-15 shooting) and Nate Laszewski (18 points on 6-of-8 shooting) stretched the floor and got into the lane at will, igniting an Irish interior game that erupted for 58 points in the paint, a rare domination of the interior at Rutgers’ expense.

Baker was first to strap his team to his back, offering one last display of his patented step-back jumper late in the second half, answering every Notre Dame rally before his look for the win at the end of regulation was too strong. In overtime, Harper added a pair of improbable 3-pointers from beyond NBA range, one that banked off the glass and in late in the first extra session and a second in the second 5-minute period that tied the score again and set the stage for the agonizing conclusion.

“I've been saying this all year, I've never had a group like this,” Pikiell again said. “This group has been flat-out special. It's by far my best team since I've been at Rutgers. They played with their backs to the wall. But it was a sad locker room, and they put it all on the line, they fought the whole time, and that's what this group has done for three years. They fought, and I'm proud of them for that.”

And so it ends for a program that rose from the ashes, became a national player against seemingly impossible odds to come five minutes from a Sweet 16 last year and seconds from another NCAA Tournament win after exorcising 38-year-old demons last March. All in all, not bad for someone who just wanted validation in his career after being overlooked as a recruit, despite the final result.

“Growing up, all I ever wanted was somebody to respect me, somebody to tell me I'm good enough,” Harper admitted. “And I found it here at Rutgers. I found a group of guys that believed in me, that trusted me. That's all I could ever ask for. It sucks that we came up short, but these last four years are something I'll remember for the rest of my life and I'll cherish and I'll hold close to me.”