newjerseynewsroom.com

BY MATT SUGAM

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

PISCATAWAY – Clutch. One word that is the highest of compliments to an athlete.

According to Webster’s dictionary, it’s something made or done in a crucial situation, or a person successful in a crucial situation.

Not that you needed the definition. Everyone knows what clutch is when they see it.

In basketball the most notable names that come to mind are Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. An accolade they’ve attained after countless displays of their ability to be cold-blooded assassins in the waning moments of a game.

Rutgers is now leaning on two players that were recently hitting such shots in high school and on the AAU circuit.

So what’s making head coach Mike Rice rely on his two freshmen Eli Carter and Myles Mack?

“They have that creativity. They have the ability to create for others or create for themselves,” Rice said. “We don’t have a lot of that. We generate a lot of our shots off of our offense and off of our movement.”

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Coming Through in the Clutch

The duo has had their ups and downs with clutch shots this season.

They both hit big shot after big shot towards the end of regulation and in both overtimes in the upset against Florida.

Carter has seen two buzzer beaters to tie a game rim out in the last three weeks. The most recent was Saturday, taking the ball with 8.5 seconds left after Georgetown hit a pair of free throws to take a two-point lead. Rice had a timeout in his pocket that he didn’t take, something he has no regrets about.

“8.5 seconds I’m not going to take a timeout anytime because I have the ball where I want it — in Eli’s hands,” said Rice.

And both Carter and Mack want the ball in their hands. But it’s an experience that can’t be simulated.

“You practice your skills and your confidence to take that shot, but that’s just something that’s got to be kind of inside you,” Rice said. “I've got to be confident that you’re going to rise to that challenge. That you’re not just going to throw something up. That you’re going to fight and scratch and claw for a great shot.”

Even as young players adjusting to the college game, Mack and Carter have already shown glimpses of that.

Whatever the intangible factor that gives one the ability to be clutch, the two have it. And they know it.

They also know it’s not something that they can do outside an actual game. It’s a trait that has to be mastered without being able to actually practice it in practice.

“I don’t think you can practice being a clutch player,” Mack said. “It just happens over time.”

It’s an innate ability that is refined over time, in the crucial moments late in games.

“It just happens," Carter said. "You have that feeling during the game if you’re in the flow."

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Childhood Dreams

It all started in the parks in Paterson. Both Mack and Carter grew up in the North Jersey city, spending much of their childhood on the local basketball courts.

Like every other kid, they dreamed of hitting game winning shots.

“I used to always do that when I was younger,” Mack said. “I used to play against myself and count down from 10 seconds and take the last shot. I used to do that like everyday.”

Since it’s not something a player can practice, do these childhood rituals help the players now?

“That definitely helps,” Carter said. “I used to do that when I was younger in the park by myself, I’d dribble the ball full court, count down.”

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The Pressure Cooker

The one overriding factor that comes along with being a clutch player is the immense amount of pressure that comes along with it.

“It puts a lot of pressure on you because if you don’t get it done then I guess you’re not considered a clutch player,” Mack said.

You can also take the blame for a loss, which isn’t usually fair. Mack missed a three-pointer with :29 left end the game when the score was knotted at 50 before Carter’s floater from the left win didn’t fall. Neither were bad shots. Both were good looks that just didn’t find the bottom of the net.

While it’s hard to say you can learn from misses, for young players such and Mack and Carter, it can thicken their skin.

“You toughen up because you have pressure on you,” Rice said. “You know what it feels like.”

But for players like Mack and Carter, they’ve been doing it for so long already, it's a feeling they've become accustomed to.

“It’s just something I’m kind of used too,” Mack said.

Now they’re just adjusting to doing it on a bigger stage, under a bigger microscope.

For more Rutgers basketball coverage follow Matt Sugam on Twitter @MattSugam and on Facebook.