newjerseynewsroom.com

BY MIKE VORKUNOV

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM

MID-DAY MONDAY REWIND

This is the first of what should be a weekly thing, the Mid-day Monday Rewind. The name says it all. Every Monday, around the middle of the day, we'll take a look back at the weekend that was for Rutgers and Seton Hall basketball, other New Jersey teams and around the Big East.

This week we start with a look at Seton Hall's overlooked but underappreciated win, Rutgers topsy-turvy weekend, Rider's wake-up call and a suddenly revised Big East power poll.

Win of the weekend: This one belongs to the Pirates. Bobby Gonzalez took a chance going up to Ithaca, N.Y. to play a Cornell team that is certainly among the top 50 in the country. This was not a calculated risk on the part of The Hall, it was a Catch-22, as Gonzalez pointed out after the game. As good as the Big Red may be, and they are good, wins over Ivy League teams don't win you any style points in the eyes of the public. Losses to Ivy League teams can mar an entire out of conference slate.

So considering all that, Seton Hall's win holds extra weight because now they have a win over a likely NCAA Tournament team on the resume if they are on the bubble come March. There is a chance this win looks better if Cornell can pull another upset with the games still left on their schedule: at Syracuse (unlikely but not unprecedented), St. Joseph's, and at Kansas (no way but a good performance could help just as much).

Almost as important as the win itself was that Jeremy Hazell seemed to right himself. He struggled shooting the ball in his first two games but showed no signs of that Friday. At one point he scored 11 straight points for SHU and finished with 33 points on 12-25 shooting and five three-pointers. Cornell coach Steve Donahue said it best afterward, sometimes Hazell can shoot his team out of games and Donahue was hoping for a 7-25 night, but when Hazell has it going the Pirates are tough to top.

Goodbye Goodwill: 48 hours is a long time. Especially in a college basketball season. Because that's how long it took for Rutgers to change the mindset of their fan base. After their win over Marist, it seemed that this would be the year the Scarlet Knights would finally put their pieces together. But a close win over Drexel and then an unlikely loss to Vermont, who in their season opener were blown out by Loyola (MD), made you think again.

Against Drexel it was the free throw shooting, as Rutgers missed 19 of their 35 free throws. Sunday it was the 20 turnovers that stood out most. And the weekend could have been worse if not for Gregory Echenique's heroics versus the Dragons.

Maybe it was just an off weekend for Rutgers, certainly seasons cannot be forecast based on two games, and they are not the only team struggling to find themselves. But what is most disconcerting is that the games came at a time when they looked as if they turned the corner in the season-opener. The Knights had given their fans something to be excited about, but now the expression "Same old Rutgers" is being bandied about again. A weekend double-dip in Atlantic City against Massachusetts and the Florida/Michigan State winner and a good showing in at least one of the games will go a long way.

A Fast Fall: Last weekend Rider was the season's first conquering David, now they lay by the wayside after visiting Goliath. A four-day weekend for the Broncs left them with two huge losses and what had to be one wake-up call.

Rider traveled south to Virginia and then Kentucky and came out of there with 23 and 29-point losses. The one to Kentucky can be excused because it comes at the hands of a championship caliber team, but the tumble to the Cavaliers really hurts. This is not a Virginia team with high expectations and already with a 17-point loss at South Florida in the bag. Mississippi State, they are not. So what is there to make of Rider's loss?