Rutgers men's basketball set for home contest against Ohio State
The Rutgers men’s basketball team will look to knock off another Associated Press (AP) Top 25 ranked team in Ohio State tomorrow night. The Scarlet Knights (13-9, 7-5) are in the midst of a stretch of five games all against ranked opponents.
Rutgers picked up a much-needed 84-63 victory against then No. 13 Michigan State on Saturday afternoon. Six players scored for the Knights in the win, and all six scored in double-figures. The scoring was led by senior guard Ron Harper Jr. and sophomore center Clifford Omoruyi who each scored 17 points.
In addition, senior guard Geo Baker scored 12 points of his own to put him above 1,500 points for his collegiate career. He is the 12th player in school history to achieve the feat.
“I honestly wasn’t in love with the first half as far as our defense was concerned. I thought we played really good defense in the second half,” said head coach Steve Pikiell after the game. “We didn’t turn the ball over like we did in the past, but rebounding is always what we try to emphasize especially against this team.”
As it currently stands, Rutgers is projected to be a four-seed in the National Invitation Tournament. With 12 Big Ten wins representing the number that would give the program a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament, that would mean the Knights would have to win 5 of its last 8 games with five of those games coming against ranked opponents.
Fortunately for Rutgers, several of its players are peaking at the right time. Junior guard Paul Mulcahy is coming off a week that saw him average 23 points (PPG), 9.5 assists (APG), 5.5 rebounds (RPG) and 2.5 steals-per-game (SPG) on 72.7 percent shooting. Despite his strong play, Mulcahy came up short of the Big Ten Player of the Week award, which went to Illinois’ Kofi Cockburn.
Alongside Mulcahy has been Omoruyi, who accumulated a career-high 22 points in last week’s loss to Northwestern to go along with his performance on Saturday. The Benin City, Nigeria, native has upped his PPG average from 3.8 last season to 11.4 PPG this season.
Despite the proficient scoring of Mulcahy and Omoruyi recently, Harper remains the team’s leading scorer at 15.9 PPG. Omoruyi is the top rebounder at eight RPG, good enough for seventh in the conference.
Mulcahy dishes out a conference-high 5.4 APG while senior guard Caleb McConnell leads the Big Ten with 2.1 SPG. Baker ranks third in the Big Ten in assist-to-turnover ratio.
For the No. 16 Buckeyes (14-5, 7-3), E.J. Liddell has the lead in scoring at 19.9 PPG, which is fourth in the conference. He also is the leading rebounder at 7.7 RPG while Jamari Wheeler leads in assists at 3.7 per-game. Ohio State has won the past four meetings against the Knights.
The game will tip off at 7 p.m. and will be broadcasted on the Big Ten Network and 88.7 WRSU-FM.
“You know the respect I have for Michigan State. I think (head coach Tom Izzo) is the best coach in the country,” Pikeill said on Saturday. “You have to play 40 minutes and we did today. A lot of guys did a lot of good things so I'm really pleased. This league, another tough one is right around the corner. So I'm happy, just for a moment."
For updates on the Rutgers men's basketball team, follow @TargumSports on Twitter.
