PISCATAWAY – The opponent was Howard and the month is November, but you’d never know it based on the atmosphere in Jersey Mike’s Arena Saturday night.
It sounded like a February Big Ten game as the Scarlet Knights pulled away in the second half to post a 85-63 victory before a rocking crowd of 7,000.
Sophomore guard Derek Simpson fed off the vibes, breaking out for a career-high 23 points on 7-of-10 shooting and handing out four assists as Rutgers improved to 3-1. He checked out in the final minute to a standing ovation.
“It was pretty loud in there,” Simpson said. “They (fans) came with their voices.”
The raucous home court on a random November Saturday begs an important question in a week when the athletic department sent a survey out to season-ticket holders about an impending renovation.
How can Rutgers overhaul this 8,000-seat, old-school gem of an arena while maintaining the gritty characteristics that make it such a death trap for visitors?
“There’s been a lot of talk lately because there’s been a survey out,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said when asked tha question. “I love the environment, I love this place, unfortunately, I don’t get to use any of the amenities so it doesn’t really affect me or the players as much as it would everybody else. But I want to keep the sound loud and I like the environment. Hopefully they can figure all that stuff out, but I think it’s way down the road anyway.”
Postgrad guard Aundre Hyatt, who has seen this building rock for three seasons, said there is just one thing he would change.
“The seating, I’d like to see the whole thing (enclosed), so the one side is not actually a small portion of bleachers,” Hyatt said. “That’s the only thing I would change — I want to keep it the same, the atmosphere, because it gets really loud and we benefit off that.”
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1-Renovate carefully
Yes, the building needs a facelift – more bathrooms and, for revenue-generation purposes, some form of luxury seating. But any major overhaul is playing with fire. Expand capacity beyond 8,000? Tread carefully. Rearrange the seats’ proximity to the court? Bad idea. Move the student section from the baseline to sidecourt? That’s a hard no.
There was some chatter a while back of perhaps displacing the team for an entire season while the overhaul took place. That’s not happening, in large part because Pikiell was adamantly against it.
Still, it’s more than fair for him to be concerned about any changes that would diminish one of the best home-court edges in college basketball. The student section, in particular, has been off-the-charts impactful.
“They make it one of the toughest places in the country to play,” Pikiell said. “We play hard and they enjoy and appreciate these guys.”
2-Run, run, run
We’ll keep saying it: This squad plays best when pushing the pace. The Scarlet Knights registered 27 fast-break points and broke things open by running. It helps that Howard turned it over 20 times, but Rutgers was opportunistic with those miscues.
3-Derek Simpson’s rolling
With two strong games this week, the Lenape High School grad showed everyone why expectations were high for him as a sophomore – he was superb all preseason, mostly behind closed doors.
The fact that he was ranked as the No. 247 player in his class and rated three stars despite leading his high school to a state title is a joke — and a blight on the recruiting industrial complex.
4-Ball movement crisp
The record shows 19 assists for the Scarlet Knights, but the reality was better. There were at least a dozen “hockey assists” – good passes that led to an assist. This group moves the ball particularly well in transition. Their outlet passes are sharp and the guards and wings are clever at leaking out off long rebounds or turnovers.
“We’ve been practicing very well getting the ball off the floor, making the right reads,” Simpson said. “The hockey assists are something we work on every day. We tell guys, if you’re gonna cut hard, cut to the other side, you’re gonna get somebody else open. I think we still have a lot more cleaning up to do. We had 11 turnovers today. I think we’re better than that as a team.”
Howard (2-3), which is coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance, could not handle Rutgers center Cliff Omoruyi (14 points, 15 rebounds, 4 blocks).
5-Feast Week bummer
This is Pikiell’s eighth year at the helm, and for the eighth straight year, Rutgers is not in a Feast Week tournament. It’s going to be nine days until their next game, Nov. 27 at home against Saint Peter’s. That’s an unusual break this early in the campaign.
Why do that instead of joining their high-major brethren in the Feast Week fun?
“They do have school work too that they need to kind of catch up on a little bit, but we’re just going to try to really get better,” Pikiell said. “You got a five-game stretch here that was game after game after game so guys are banged up too. We’ll give them a little time off.”
Three players (forward Mawot Mag, guard Austin Williams, and center Emmanuel Ogbole) continue to be sidelined by injuries.
“I think this team has a really good chance to get better — that’s the one thing we did from the Princeton game on; every time you saw us, we got better,” Pikiell said. “We plugged some of the holes we had rebounding wise, then turnovers went down, making open shots, finishing layups above the rim. We’re going to continue to get better and there’s some more things I need to put in and do with the team too. I’m excited about it now that we kind of formed our rotations here.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at [email protected].