Rutgers has nobody to blame but itself for NCAA Tournament snub | Politi

The final spot in the NCAA Tournament bracket for a bubble team popped onto the screen just after 6:30 p.m. on Sunday night, and man, it looked like a wonderful opportunity. There, sitting on the No. 6 line in the East Regional, was a talented but flawed Kentucky team.

Maybe Rutgers would have a shot to go to Greensboro, N.C., and shock the bluest of the blue bloods in the first round. Maybe this imperfect season for the Scarlet Knights would have ended with the perfect matchup and a third straight March Madness moment.

And then the other half of the matchup was revealed.

PROVIDENCE.

That was it. That was the moment the dream died. The Scarlet Knights are headed to the NIT now, a brutal consolation prize for a team that looked like a tournament lock in February but was in the dreaded “first four out” category when it mattered. They found themselves left looking at their resume and wondering how teams like Nevada, Pittsburgh and Arizona State ended up in the field with lower metrics, which is a fair question.

They also must concede this: The ones most responsible for this Selection Sunday snub staring back at them in the mirror.

“I felt like we certainly did enough,” head coach Steve Pikiell said. “I thought we had a resume that stacked up with a lot of teams.”

Pikiell used some variation of those words — we did enough — several times during a 10-minute Zoom call with reporters. The reality, though, is the opposite. His team gave the selection committee several reasons to leave it out of the field.

Yes, committee chairman Chris Reynolds said on CBS that injuries impacted how it selected and seeded teams, and he specifically mentioned Rutgers as one that was impacted. The men and women picking the field saw how the Scarlet Knights played without forward Mawot Mag, and clearly, they were not impressed. (Nor, in fairness, is it clear if they even considered the referee’s blunder that cost them a win at Ohio State in December.)

But Rutgers shouldn’t have been anywhere near the bubble. Mag’s ACL tear was a factor for the struggles in the final weeks of the season, but it isn’t the only reason the Scarlet Knights suffered double-digit home losses to Northwestern and Michigan and certainly isn’t why they blew that 10-point lead at Minnesota.

Nor does the unfortunate injury to Mag explain a schedule philosophy that left Rutgers lacking in a crucial metric that the committee considers. This disappointing night must be the impetus for Pikiell to finally improve a non-conference schedule that routine ranks among the worst in major college basketball. It is, by far, the easy fix within the program’s control.

And Pikiell’s answer when pressed on the topic wasn’t promising.

“I don’t think (scheduling) had anything to do with today,” Pikiell said. “Our numbers were as high as they’ve been and higher than they were last year.”

Remember last year? That’s when Rutgers suffered a metric-crushing home loss to Lafayette early in the season and needed an historic run over victories over ranked teams just to reach the play-in game. That close call should have been enough to force Pikiell to finally play a non-conference slate commiserate with the team’s improvements in his seven years.

Instead, that Rutgers schedule ranked 314th out of 363 Division 1 teams in the NET Rankings and 343rd in KenPom’s efficiency rankings. The Scarlet Knights played nine of their 11 non-conference games at home, all of which were against Quadrant 3/4 opponents. Rutgers has never had a non-conference strength of schedule higher than 294th nationally under Pikiell, per KenPom.

That has to change. The bottom line: Rutgers left its fate in the hands of a bunch of administrators locked in a room in Indianapolis, both by its scheduling choices and its lackluster play in crucial games down the stretch. Don’t blame the committee members for picking someone else. That’s completely on the Scarlet Knights.

Look: Rutgers hasn’t reached the level where fans should expect the NCAA Tournament every season. A run in the NIT might not move the needle nationally, but it will be a positive experience for young players who figure to play a prominent role for this program in the future.

But given how this team played early in the season, with victories over contenders like Purdue and Indiana, the consolation prize should have never been in play. Sixty-eight other teams will play for a national championship over the next three weeks while the humbled Scarlet Knights watch from Piscataway.

They should have two goals now: 1. Win the damn NIT. 2. Do everything possible to make sure a night like Sunday never happens again.

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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.