The nightmare season for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights ended when the team lost to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament on Wednesday. The day after the loss, the school fired head coach Eddie Jordan. Rutgers finished the season 7-25 and the team went 1-17 in the Big Ten, their lone conference win came against the Minnesota Golden Gophers, who are the second worst team in the Big Ten.
The Scarlet Knights practically got blown out in every game this season, and their seven wins this season have been against weak teams.
Not too many positive things have came from this season, and ever since Rutgers joined the Big Ten, they have only won three games and have lost 35. Rutgers wants to put the past season in the rearview right away, and even though it is hard to believe, their future might be bright.
Rutgers has a young team, and all the players that played meaningful minutes for the squad this season will be back next season, except for Omari Grier. Freshmen Corey Sanders was terrific all season long for the Scarlet Knights by being the team's best offensive weapon. He was a bright spot for the Scarlet Knights all season and hopefully he will stay with the Scarlet Knights for four seasons.
Other than Sanders, not much went right for the Scarlet Knights, but it is hard for them to do worse than they did this season, so hopefully a coaching change will help the Scarlet Knights.
Looking Ahead
There will be some great basketball going on once the NCAA tournament starts, but Rutgers will not be a part of any postseason tournament. They did not come close to beat any good teams all season, and when they played against pretty good teams, they got dismantled. They lost to the Purdue Boilermakers by 50 at home on Jan. 18, which basically sums up the entire season for Rutgers. They could not compete against the better teams in the Big Ten and they could not defeat even the weaker teams in the Big Ten, except their lone conference win over the Golden Gophers.
Rutgers will be welcoming some decent recruits next season and they will keep most of their key players from this season, which is hopefully why the Scarlet Knights will be better next season. Rutgers has been terrible in conference play ever since they joined the Big Ten, which is why the team needs to hire a new coach that will attract some key recruits or transfers for the future. Corey Sanders is a key piece for the future, and hopefully the new coach of Rutgers can get some more talent to surround Sanders and a young Rutgers' squad.
Overall
Rutgers needs to put this past season in the rearview as soon as possible and think about the future. The team will add a new coach, 3-star recruit Issa Thiam, 2-star recruit Jahlil Tripp, and they will return most of their roster from this past season. Rutgers has not shown that they deserve to be in the Big Ten since they have joined, but the good news is that they cannot be much worse than they were last season, unless they lose every Big Ten game next season...
It is a tough time to be a Rutgers' basketball fan, but at least Corey Sanders is on the team because he has a really bright future, now their just needs to be more talent around him.