Rutgers digs deep, pitches shutout over final minutes to put Saint Peter’s away

Dylan Harper led Rutgers with 24 points, including go-ahead layup, as Scarlet Knights earned resilient win Monday against Saint Peter’s. (Photo by Rutgers Athletics)

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Rutgers won its season opener with relative ease this past Wednesday when it locked Wagner down midway through the first half en route to 20 straight points.

Its first action since then saw more of a fight from the opposing side, but a similar result.

Trailing Saint Peter’s—a reputed physical, tough, gritty team who won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament last March playing a suffocating, in-your-face defensive style—by one point with four minutes remaining, the 24th-ranked Scarlet Knights had to dig deeper. And Jordan Derkack, who was on the other side of a similar game last season when his Merrimack team took Georgetown to the limit, knew exactly how to pacify the tangible tension among his teammates.

“You could feel the vibe,” Derkack said after Rutgers closed the game on an 11-0 run Monday to down the scrappy Peacocks, 75-65, improving to 2-0 in the process. “It’s great that we have guys that have been on the other side of this game. I’ve played in big games, on the other side. It’s great to have the feeling of being on this side now, and I could see the vibe getting tense a little bit. I was telling everybody, ‘take a deep breath, calm down, stay focused.’ And we wound up doing what we needed to do.”

“Some of these games are just tough,” Steve Pikiell stated. “You have to figure out a way. We’ve gotta learn, and I’ll tell you: There was some great leadership. Jordan said some things in the huddle and J-Mike was fantastic. These games help you out a ton, you learn a lot of lessons. We’ve gotta get better in a lot of areas, with some screen coverage mishaps and some other timely mistakes, but we’ll devour the film and we’ll learn a lot from this. It’s part of the journey.”

On this night, Rutgers’ journey included Dylan Harper’s 24 points being nearly matched by senior guard Marcus Randolph, who led Saint Peter’s (0-3) with 22. The Scarlet Knights were in for a fight from the opening tip, and even when they opened a seven-point lead late in the second half, were not completely out of the woods. TJ Morris, handling point guard duties for the Peacocks after Bryce Eaton was unable to play in the second half, put the visitors in front with 4:07 remaining in regulation, with the second of his back-to-back buckets giving Saint Peter’s a 65-64 advantage. On the ensuing possession, Harper threaded the needle with a driving layup to put the hosts ahead for good, a lead in which the importance was reinforced at the final media timeout by Rutgers’ veterans.

“We had a timeout with probably three or four minutes left,” Derkack recalled. “We were up one at that point, and all we talked about was, ‘if they can’t score, they won’t win this game.’ And that’s a credit to the old guys, and I’m thinking (Zach) Martini probably said it. We went out there, we finished the game on an 11-0 run, and that’s what put us in the position to win.”

Rutgers gave up an uncharacteristic 42 first-half points on Monday, a number Pikiell lamented for being atypical of his program but conceded as a byproduct of the faster tempo his has played at through the first 80 minutes of a young season. But from the moment the gates opened out of the intermission, what Rutgers produced was more in line with what fans are accustomed to, only allowing 23 points and playing the defense that has become a calling card under the ninth-year head coach.

“I thought from the first four minutes of the second half, we played Rutgers basketball,” Pikiell said. “Our ball pressure was elite, and then (Jamichael Davis) comes in and gives us some really good minutes, too. Our bench has been fantastic, Lathan Sommerville (has) back-to-back double-figure games, obviously what Dylan does his first two games, and in the second half, we really settled down and played our defense. I loved how we finished, an 11-0 run to wrap up the game, they didn’t score in the last four. It was a good sign.”

The defining characteristic of this Rutgers unit, at least through its first two showings, is having an older core that affects winning even if the final numbers may not be as gaudy. Last week, Derkack and PJ Hayes were instrumental in the 23-point win over Wagner. On Monday, it was Derkack and Jeremiah Williams, the latter of whom recorded a game-high plus-17 efficiency rating despite making just two of eight field goal attempts.

“We’ve got a good blend,” said Derkack. “We’ve got young bucks that can really, really play, we’ve got some old guys that have been in this game for a while. It’s awesome to get this chemistry going.”

“We can move him around,” Pikiell said of Derkack and his versatility. “He was guarding fives at the end of the game, he’s tough enough to do that and grabbed the huge traffic rebounds. He’s a really good passer, he can score, he can go downhill. He knows how to play defensively, too. He brings a lot to our team. I’m really glad to have him, and J-Will’s been great. I’ve said that to you guys since June. He’s kind of been our voice and he does a lot of things. You saw he affected the game when he didn’t score the points that he usually scores. It’s a good sign for us. We need all these guys, and we’re gonna be a team that wins because of the group. This isn’t just a one-man show, this is everyone doing what they need to do.”