Rutgers has been a hard team to figure out this season. At times Mike Rice’s club looks ready to vault itself into the top half of the conference. When you beat No. 10 Florida (85-83), No. 8 Connecticut (67-60), Notre Dame (65-58), Cincinnati (61-54), and you pound Pittsburgh (62-39) at their place you clearly have talent on your basketball team.
The problem for Rice has been there are too many clunkers on his team’s results sheet as well. The wins over the teams mentioned above are overshadowed by the disappointing losses to Illinois State (76-70), Richmond (58-53), LSU (55-50), Princeton (59-57), and a number of Big East beat downs.
In their last game the Scarlet Knights faced a must win at home against a struggling Seton Hall team. A win would have tied Rutgers with defending national champ UConn in the Big East standings and put them just a game behind West Virginia. Rutgers dropped that home contest and fell to 11th in the conference. The loss also gives Rutgers a losing record for just the second time this season.
All is not lost for Rutgers, who remains a young, athletic, and talented basketball club. The hope for Rice is that the team’s big wins can build enough confidence to allow them to get past their most recent rough patch. Rutgers has now lost five of six since it beat Notre Dame. In fact, Rutgers is the last team to have actually beaten the Irish. That win gave Rutgers a respectable 11-8 record and its fourth big win of the season. The Knights could not take advantage and immediately went into a tailspin in which it currently remains.
Rutgers can only hope the sight of the Irish, a team Rutgers knows it can beat, is enough to get the young Knights back on track. But that will not come as easily as it did in January. Notre Dame is a much better basketball team now than it was then. The Irish are also extremely difficult to beat at home.
In order to knock off the Irish Rutgers is going to have to start putting the ball in the basket with greater consistency. Rutgers ranks 15th in the conference in scoring offense (66.2) and 12th in the conference in field goal percentage. The Scarlet Knights don’t shoot the ball well from inside or outside of the three point line. If they get hot, however, they have the youth and talent to score in bunches.
Rutgers is still growing on defense thanks primarily to its youth. One thing they do well, however, is get their hands on a lot of passes. Rutgers is fifth in the conference with 8.6 steals per game, over three steals more per game than Notre Dame averages. Of course the flip side of that is the fact Rutgers turns the ball over more than every team in the conference save one.
2011-2012 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS
HEAD COACH: Mike Rice
ASSISTANT COACHES: David Cox, Van Macon, Jimmy Martelli
2011-2012 RESULTS (12-13 overall, 4-8 conference)
Dartmouth W 62-56
at Miami, FL L 57-72
Sacred Heart W 91-75
Hampton W 66-52
vs. Illinois State * L 70-76
vs. Richmond * L 53-58
Maryland-Baltimore Co. W 94-56
LSU L 50-55
Princeton L 57-59
Monmouth W 81-66
Stony Brook W 67-58
N.J.I.T. W 77-53
Florida W 85-83 2 OT
at South Florida L 65-67
West Virginia L 64-85
Connecticut W 67-60
at Pittsburgh W 62-39
at West Virginia L 60-84
Notre Dame W 65-58
at Georgetown L 50-52
DePaul L 64-69
Cincinnati W 61-54
at Providence L 67-78
at Louisville L 66-78
Seton Hall L 54-59
* - Cancun Challenge
STARTERS
G Jerome Seagears 6-1 Fr. 7.4 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.3 apg
G Eli Carter 6-2 Fr. 13.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.2 apg
F Dane Miller 6-6 Jr. 6.9 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 1.8 bpg
F Gilvydas Biruta 6-8 Soph. 9.4 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 1.6 apg
C Austin Johnson 6-8 Jr. 5.0 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 0.4 spg
KEY RESERVES
G Myles Mack 6-4 Fr. 10.2 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 2.1 apg
G/F Mike Poole 6-5 Soph. 6.9 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.3 spg
F Malick Kone 6-5 Fr. 3.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 0.8 apg
F Kadeem Jack 6-9 Fr. 1.1 ppg, 0.8 rpg, 0.5 bpg
C/F Derrick Randall 6-8 Fr. 2.7 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 0.4 bpg
BACKCOURT
It became apparent very early in Eli Carter’s freshman season that the 6-foot-2 guard would be the best player for the Scarlet Knights this season. Carter had a bit of a breakout game when he scored 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting in a tight loss to Princeton. The freshman dropped 21 on 7-of-9 shooting (including 3-4 from behind the arc) against Monmouth, but it was the Florida game where he truly had his coming out party. In Rutgers monumental win over the Gators, Billy Donovan’s backcourt had no answer for the talented Rutgers freshman. Carter scored 31 points, grabbed seven rebounds, and handed out seven assists as the Knights beat the Gators 85-83 in double overtime. He scored 19 points in an upset victory over then No. 8 Connecticut. Teams have been able to put more pressure and attention on Carter during Big East play as Rutgers struggles to find some help for their talented young guard. That did not stop Carter from dropping 17 on Cincinnati in a big Rutgers win or from scoring 24 against Louisville last week. Freshman point guard Jerome Seagears has also put together a solid freshman season for the Knights. Although his scoring is inconsistent, Seagears shows flashes of developing into a quality Big East point guard in the very near future. His biggest issue at this point in his development is his inability to knock down jump shots. He does a good job running the Rutgers offense and protects the basketball relatively well for a freshman, but right now he struggles to consistently knock down jumpers. Seagears has seen his three-point percentage start to climb during Big East play, a sign of good things to come. The third member of the talented freshman backcourt in Piscataway is 5-foot-9 guard Myles Mack. Mack has actually done better off the bench this season, averaging 11.1 points in that role. He is second in the conference in steals among freshmen and is capable of lighting up a scoreboard if he gets hot. Mack has scored over 20 points on three occasions and dropped 14 points on 5-of-8 shooting against Florida. Sophomore Mike Poole is the veteran of the backcourt, which shows the youth of this basketball team. He’s a longer wing player who can knock down the occasional three point shot. Poole has begun to heat up lately, scoring 12.0 points per game over the last three contests.
FRONTCOURT
Rutgers does not get much scoring from its frontcourt, and its best rebounder is just 6-foot-6. Wingman Dane Miller leads the Scarlet Knights at 6.2 rebounds per game, but only one other player (Gilvydas Biruta, 5.4) averages over 3.3 rebounds per game. The return of freshman 6-foot-9 freshman Kadeem Jack to the rotation should help add depth and length to the interior. Biruta is the only player who has started every game this season for the Knights. He is Rutgers third leading scorer at 9.4 points per game and is second on the team in rebounds. Biruta has not shot the ball well from the field this season, with his field goal percentage down ten percentages points from his strong freshman season. His free throw percentage is also down about the same. He began the season playing quite well, scoring in double figures eight times in the teams’ first 13 games. Since Big East play began, Biruta has scored in double figures just twice. His double-double against Providence (13 points, 11 boards) was just his second of the season. Miller has become less of a shooter this season, which is why his points are down from his first two seasons. When he does shoot he is hitting almost half his shots, a big improvement over the 41.7-percent shooting he put up as a sophomore. Despite standing just 6-foot-6, Miller has put up four double-doubles on the season, including three in Big East play. His 11-point, 12-rebound performance against Pittsburgh helped fuel that win over one of the best rebounding teams in the country. Austin Johnson has grabbed just one rebound in four of his last five games, which is unacceptable for a 6-foot-8 player that is averaging almost 20 minutes a game. Freshman Derrick Randall gives quality minutes off the Rutgers bench and has a chance to be a solid big man for the Knights down the road.
