For Rutgers, emotional journey a reminder of how its seniors raised program’s pulse and spirit

Caleb McConnell (22) acknowledges fans after Rutgers career concludes with NIT loss against Hofstra. (Photo by Andy Mills/NJ Advance Media)

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Steve Pikiell has been down this road before at Rutgers. 

That’s not to say its navigation is any smoother.

Five years ago, a senior class led by Mike Williams helped the moribund Scarlet Knights turn the corner with a run to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Conference tournament. A freshman named Geo Baker was equally as instrumental off the bench in those three magical days at Madison Square Garden. Soon, Baker begat Ron Harper, Jr and Caleb McConnell. One year later, Paul Mulcahy stayed in New Jersey when he arrived on the banks after four years at Gill St. Bernard’s.

Baker and Harper bid farewell to Rutgers Nation last March in an unforgettable double-overtime NCAA Tournament classic. Twelve months later, it was McConnell — and perhaps Mulcahy as well — exiting the stage at Jersey Mike's Arena after an emotional and heartbreaking loss to Hofstra in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament that was equally and noticeably hard on both players and coach.

“When these guys came to our program, we didn’t have a winning season four years ago,” a somber Pikiell reflected, his voice cracking on numerous occasions during a 26-minute press conference in which he mainly spoke from the heart. “There were no sellouts, there was no practice facility. These guys, for four years, they’ve done nothing but win. Caleb’s the national defensive player of the year, came to me young, he wasn’t sure of himself. He leaves here the all-time leading steals guy. If you saw what I saw every day for five years, he’s just done unbelievable. I couldn’t be more proud of him. When Paul came here, we didn’t have a winning record. One of the leading assist guys in the country, he came here and just wins.”

“When you don’t get to coach them anymore, and I’m going to miss these guys next year, it’s a sad day for a coach. When you start recruiting these guys as young high school players, and then they come here and what they’ve done for us, it’s just been tremendous. I am emotional, I don’t like when the season ends. I just wanted to keep coaching this group.”

And those feelings have come to define what Rutgers basketball is now. No longer the subject of levity or the game opposing coaches welcome in an attempt to bust out of slumps, Rutgers is now a sustainable outfit, one that is welcoming prestigious recruits for the first time continuously, but at the same time, staying true to what brought it into the national limelight by placing the players first.

“It’s all love, man,” McConnell said of Pikiell and his relationship with the affable head coach. “And I know no matter what, on and off the court, Coach Pikiell has our back. Anybody could vouch, no matter whether they played one year, two years or all four here. The things that Pike has done for this school is amazing. I was telling (athletic director) Pat Hobbs he got the right coach for sure. It’s not every time you get a coach that cares and a coach that can turn around a university, keep it there and put it on a pedestal. I have all the love for him, and he knows that. I know y’all give him a lot of hurt, but he takes everything on the chin for us. It don’t matter if Paul has 10 turnovers or I’m 0-for-15, Pikiell’s gonna find a way to make it his fault.”

“Pike’s the best coach in the country,” Mulcahy echoed. “Incredible person. You play whenever for him, he’s got you for life. He believed in me when a lot of other people didn’t, and has taken a lot of heat because of me. He deserves all the things that he works for, better than this, but he’s gonna get us to higher places. I’m so thankful that I got to play for him. You guys give him heat and he takes it every single time, but I’m just so grateful for him.”

The feeling is mutual from the coach’s perspective as Pikiell now learns to not necessarily let go, but readjust to the culmination of one saga and beginning of an entirely new one.

“It’s the journey of the season,” he shared. “Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. Sometimes you’ve got injuries, sometimes you’ve got guys going through different issues. They’re young and they’ve got a lot of things coming at them. I love the journey always, I appreciate the journey. If you saw these guys when they first arrived on campus to now, we got knocked down and we kept getting back up no matter what the outcome was. They just kept staying together.”

“I love to see the improvements. I love to see (Antwone Woolfolk) and Derek get through the wall as freshmen and really start to show what I think they can do. But this group has been resilient and tough, and like I said, they’ve been awesome to coach and you don’t always get that. And then I would hear the amazing things, I would get e-mails about what they were doing off the court and all that stuff. They’ve represented Rutgers University to the highest level, they really have.”

Doing so in a timeframe rife with uncertainty also resonated with Pikiell.

“Every one of these guys had places that they could go and had people probably reaching out to them,” he said. “They all stayed and they continued the journey here. We’ll sit down with guys, but players have a ton of choices, I understand that. But they’ll make great choices for themselves.”

For his five-year stalwart, though, the choice was easy.

“I’m just blessed to be able to stamp my name forever at Rutgers,” McConnell said after having surpassed Eddie Jordan Tuesday as the program’s all-time steals leader. “This place is definitely home. For me, it’s not defense or accolades. We talk about these kids going to all these other schools, and like Coach Pikiell said, I had plenty of choices to go anywhere. I chose the best place, I chose the best coach. I met great people, great family. I’m just thankful, very thankful.”

Pikiell touched on his tendency to place himself at the center of his team’s failure, almost to a fault, to protect his players. But as he concludes his seventh season at the helm on the banks, he does so in charge of a program for the players, governed in most ways by the players, and more about the players than anything else.

“I take the Ls, I take all of them,” Pikiell stated. “They win games. Players win games, and these guys have done nothing but win…off the court, on the court. We had no success in the Big Ten before they arrived, and they’ve had tremendous success. I’m just so proud of them for how they’ve handled themselves, with class. These guys have started a standard here, and if you’ve ever gone through what we’ve gone through in the last five years, you would really understand. When we got knocked down, they got up every time.”

“I wasn’t selling what we’re selling right now when I went to visit with these guys. It was not like that. We had not had a winning season in a long time, we were 3-33 in the Big Ten, and these guys believed in us. They fought through COVID, too. They did all that, and they just kept doing all the right things. One thing about coaching that you can’t get from articles, it’s how you see them grow and how they treat my son, people around them. I wish you guys could really understand. We wanted to build a family seven years ago, and these become such a part of the family, and they come back. Ron Harper comes back and Geo comes back, and Myles Johnson comes back. I just couldn’t be more proud. It wasn’t like that, and that’s what makes a good basketball program. I’m just very thankful.”