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Weekend Brunch: Why Rutgers is “two decisions away” from again being an NCAA Tournament team

A new offseason means a new weekly column!

Check out below for the first installment of “Weekend Brunch”, a new project that will be published each and every Friday on all the latest happenings in the world of college basketball.

Buon Appetit!

A La Carte

Rutgers is “two decisions away” from again being an NCAA Tournament team

Rutgers was two plays away from beating Houston in the Round of 32 and advancing to the Sweet 16 before falling by three after having a nine-point lead with under five minutes to play. Now the Scarlet Knights are “two decisions away” from again being an NCAA Tournament caliber team next season.

If Geo Baker (10.4 points, 3.1 rebounds, 3.4 assists) and Ron Harper Jr. (14.9 points, 5.9 rebounds) — two players who are both currently early entry candidates to the NBA Draft — opt to return to Piscataway next season, Steve Pikiell will be in position to lead Rutgers to the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1976. That was also the year that the Scarlet Knights reached the Final Four and lost to UCLA.

The NCAA’s early entry withdrawal deadline is July 7th.

“They’re both going through the process,” Pikiell said last week of Baker and Harper. “We’ll find out where things stand in early July.”

Why is Rutgers “two decisions away” from again being an NCAA Tournament and a team that could finish in the top half of the Big Ten?

There’s a much better supporting cast remaining in Piscataway than people realize despite the fact that this program lost Myles Johnson (UCLA), Jacob Young (Oregon), and Montez Mathis (St. John’s) through the transfer portal.

Paul Mulcahy (6-6) and Caleb McConnell (6-7) are two proven perimeter players with tremendous size while 6-11 big man Cliff Omoruyi (3.8 points, 4.0 rebounds) is due for a breakout season as a sophomore as he becomes the Scarlet Knights’ primary focal point in the pivot. Both Mulcahy and McConnell averaged over 20 minutes on last season’s team that reached the NCAA Tournament. This troika combined with the potential return of Harper and Baker — who has played four years of college basketball and can use an additional year of eligibility due to COVID — would give Rutgers an extremely complete starting five that can match up with any in the Big Ten.

The Scarlet Knights’ staff is also confident that sophomores Mawot Mag, Dean Reiber, and Oskar Palmquist can all log quality minutes off the bench as key reserves along with redshirt freshman Jaden Jones and LSU transfer Aundre Hyatt. A word to the wise: keep an eye on the 6-7 Mag defensively.

Pikiell has completely changed the narrative around this program thanks to tremendous recruiting evaluations and elite player development. That was evident when Rutgers won an NCAA Tournament game in March against Clemson and nearly beat Houston — a Final Four team — in the next round before falling by a single possession.

“This team now becomes the standard for what we want at Rutgers,” Pikiell said after the loss to the Cougars.

That standard will remain in that exact place if Baker and Harper return to Piscataway next season.

Assorted Pastries

  • Louisville is expected to play Mississippi State and Maryland is expected to face Richmond in the first round of a new Bahamas based MTE, multiple sources told College Hoops Today. While nothing is officially done, the Cardinals are currently finalizing an agreement for the two-game tournament this November.
  • Houston’s Marcus Sasser (13.7 points) and Fabian White (6.2 points, 4.1 rebounds) both officially withdrew from the 2021 NBA Draft process this week. The Cougars are currently ranked 16th in the ROTHSTEIN 45.
  • If Jose Alvarado (15.2 points, 4.1 assists, 3.5 rebounds) returns to Georgia Tech for a fifth season, the Yellow Jackets will return every single player that participated in last March’s NCAA Tournament defeat against Loyola Chicago. Alvarado is currently an early entry candidate for the NBA Draft.
  • How hard is it to schedule games if you’re a capable non power conference team? Nevada is currently slated to play a minimum of SEVEN games away from Reno in November and December.
  • Last Friday was my first trip to CATCH since the start of the pandemic and like usual, the Meatpacking District’s top seafood spot did not disappoint. There’s not many appetizers in the world better than this place’s crispy shrimp and lobster mac and cheese.

Leftovers