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Scarlet Knights turn focus to Big East Tournament
BY KYLE FRANKO
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
PITTSBURGH — If Fred Hill and Rutgers wanted to have any momentum going into the Big East Tournament, this wasn't the way to go about it.
The Scarlet Knights were listless in an embarrassing 83-54 to Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon at the Petersen Events Center. In fact, they didn't even belong on the same floor as the Panthers.
"I said it at halftime, faces started changing," said senior center Hamady N'diaye. "You could tell that the team was falling apart. I said it; all I ask for was to give out the effort. During this entire year, I've thought everybody had the same mentality and that wasn't the case today."
Frustration reached the point that Mike Coburn got in the face of teammates during a second-half timeout. It looked like much of that venom was directed toward Dane Miller, who finally looked like he hit a freshman wall.Miller scored just three points and sat for a long stretch of the second half after irking Hill with his poor decision making.
BOXSCORE: Pittsburgh 83, Rutgers 54
But it wasn't just Miller. Everybody was culpable. The Panthers outrebounded the Knights 41-24, grabbing 17 offensive rebounds that they turned into 17 second chance points. Pitt's Dante Taylor had six offensive rebounds, the same number as Rutgers.
The Scarlet Knights (15-16, 5-13) scored 16 points in the first half — a season-low — on 6-of-22 shooting. If you had to pick a bright spot, and it's hard, it would be the play of freshman forward Austin Johnson who took advantage of Miller's off night, scoring 12 points in 17 minutes.
In the end, Hill just called the whole thing a nightmare.
"I've been afraid of this because we've played guys a ton of minutes," he said. "We've been talking about Dane as a freshman that he's never hit the proverbial freshman wall mentally and physically. We had a quick turnaround with just one day coming off the Seton Hall game and this was my worst nightmare."
Now the fourth-year head coach has to regroup his team in time for the Big East Tournament which begins Tuesday against 11th-seeded Cincinnati. He'll start by just throwing this performance against Pitt (24-7, 13-5) away.
"I think you throw it out the window, forget about it and come ready to play on Tuesday," Hill said.
Rutgers probably isn't going to win the Big East Tournament, but N'diaye, the team's lone senior, knows that he can't go out like this.
"I'm going to come out and practice as hard as I always do," said the 7-footer who moved within two blocks of Roy Hinson's school-record 355. "Whoever follows is going to show it during the tournament. We are going to go in with our heads up and we are going to go in playing the Rutgers basketball we've been playing the last couple weeks, not including today."
