Why Rutgers is the nightmare team that nobody wants to play

By John Fanta
Updated Feb 4, 2023 4:38 pm EST

NEW YORK — They are the only team in the country that has beaten Purdue. 

Tom Izzo hopes he never sees them again this season.

They are currently in second place in the Big Ten. 

And on Saturday, Madison Square Garden had 14,800 screaming fans inside the building, with at least 80% of them wearing red in a game involving one of college basketball’s best brands, green-and-white-clad Michigan State.

This is the identity of the Rutgers men's basketball team, and the result is winning.

In Saturday afternoon’s 61-55 victory over the Spartans, the Scarlet Knights showed their DNA, overcoming a 29-21 deficit two minutes into the second half and putting Michigan State into the meat grinder. Over the ensuing 16 minutes, Rutgers outscored the Spartans 30-15 to take control and earn its 16th win of the season, while moving to 8-4 in the Big Ten standings.

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Paul Mulcahy found CLifford Omoruyi for an alley-oop jam against Michigan State on Saturday.

Was it pretty? Far from it. But would you expect the college basketball program representing the state university of New Jersey to be? Of course not!

"It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but it was beautiful to me," Steve Pikiell said following the win. "We figured out a way to win. Our guys have been in a position like this a million times, and they showed it today."  

The run of success that Rutgers has put together begins and ends with Pikiell, who’s in his sixth season at the helm and has done as strong of a job program-building as anyone in the nation.

When he took over in 2016, Rutgers was irrelevant, stuck in the basement of the Big Ten after a 7-25 season under Eddie Jordan. After three years of stacking pieces together, the Scarlet Knights have become a steady force, and are on their way to a third-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament — a program first.  

"Rutgers, in my opinion, is the second-best team in the Big Ten," said Tom Izzo. "I’m a big fan of Rutgers and of Steve’s. They have a bunch of guys who are just tough, and who don’t care about anything other than winning." 

Those guys who Izzo is talking about? They weren’t four or five-star recruits in the backcourt. It’s a fifth-year senior, Caleb McConnell, who’s one of the best defenders in the country. It’s a senior point guard in Paul Mulcahy who answered the bell with 17 second-half points after going scoreless in the opening 20 minutes.

"I told Mulcahy and McConnell after the game, they’ve been great for the Big Ten," Izzo said. "I hope I never see them again. There’s just a demeanor about them. Winning seems to be first-hand."

"For him to say that, he’s a Hall of Fame coach, and they ran this league for years and years," Mulcahy said when asked about Izzo’s praise. "It’s awesome to hear it coming from him. We have a ton of respect for him and what he’s built. We’ve been watching it since we were little. As for us, that goes back to the program, university and Coach Pikiell putting us in position to win."

That winning element starts with an edge and toughness with this team, one that junior big man Cliff Omoruyi embodies. In his latest performance, the 6-foot-11, 240-pound junior from Nigeria tallied his fourth double-double in the last six games with 15 points and 12 rebounds.  

Perhaps the most important thing about the Scarlet Knights is that they are relentless defensively, ranking No. 2 in KenPom on that end of that floor. It gives them a shot against anybody, as illustrated by the 65-64 win over the top-ranked Boilermakers on Jan. 2 at Mackey Arena. The Scarlet Knights are 16-1 on the season and 8-0 in the Big Ten when allowing 65 points or fewer.

"I just love that we kept hanging in there. We stay the course," Pikiell said. 

"All year … if we’re connected on the defensive end, we wreak havoc and cause problems," McConnell added. "That’s something we wanted to do today. We wanted to smother them." 

And that’s exactly what the Scarlet Knights did to Michigan State, holding them to 31% from the floor in the final 20 minutes and 4-for-21 from 3-point range overall. 

Rutgers looked unflappable on Saturday afternoon. When the Spartans went up by eight, the Scarlet Knights just played harder. When a controversial call may have happened? They forged on. And when the opportunity to take over the game presented itself, the Scarlet Knights seized it like an A-1 driver on a summer Friday down the parkway to the Jersey shore.

In a conference that prides itself on physicality and toughness, Rutgers will never lose in that department. The Knights have added significantly to the Big Ten in basketball, and on Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, they didn’t back away from the national spotlight. Instead, they showed just how dangerous they can be.

John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him on Twitter at @John_Fanta.

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