With each screen his players were caught in, with every open three-pointer and wide-open dunk Rutgers conceded, with every lackadaisical defensive possession that lead to a basket in its 82-59 loss to Indiana on Friday night, Steve Pikiell looked more and more exasperated.
The Scarlet Knights coach was irate about his team’s effort against the Hoosiers, who earned their first win in Jersey Mike’s Arena since 2018, on a night where the visitors shot 50% from the floor (30-of-60), 42.9% on threes (15-of-35) and 61.5% at the rim (8-of-13, including three wide-open dunks).
The result marked the third consecutive loss for Rutgers (9-11, 2-7), which had won its last two home games over Oregon and Northwestern. But after being encouraged by his team’s effort in road defeats to Wisconsin and Iowa in which it lost by a combined 15 points, Pikiell could not contain his anger about how the Scarlet Knights looked in a 23-point defeat to Indiana.
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Rutgers gave up 11 offensive rebounds on 30 misses (36.7%), made eight shots at the rim while getting seven of them blocked, and committed just five fouls as a team.
“I didn’t like anything today. I didn’t like anything,” Pikiell said. “I’ve liked this team. I thought we’ve taken steps and I thought we were getting better. We outrebound our last three opponents, and this should have been another game where we did the same. That’s all effort. And I hated the fact we had five fouls. That means you’re not doing what you need to be doing defensively. We need to be physical when we play these games. We have shown signs of being physical, and we didn’t have any of that tonight.
“Our defense was terrible and we didn’t rebound.”
The poor effort began the day prior, according to Pikiell, who claims the Scarlet Knights had their worst practice of the season.
“We decided (Thursday) for whatever reason, that it wasn’t the day we were going to have practice,” Pikiell said. “The guys know how I felt about it, and it carried over to the game. How we practice is very important. When you have 10 newcomers, you got to practice to prepare to win. … We got to go back to having good practices. We got to get back to being physical. We got to have a good focus and we will. We will.”
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A rough stretch continues for Rutgers this week, when it hosts reigning Big Ten champion Michigan State on Tuesday before flying out west for a two-game stretch against the Big Ten’s Los Angeles schools. Standing two games ahead of last-place Penn State — which plays Ohio State on Monday — the Scarlet Knights are staring at what could be their longest losing streak in seven years.
Barring an upset in its next four games, where it is a major underdog to the Spartans, USC, UCLA and Nebraska, Rutgers will drop seven consecutive games for the first time since the 2017-18 season and just the second time under Pikiell.
He will look to avoid that the only way he knows how: getting his team to play as hard as possible.
“We’ll have a heck of a practice (Saturday),” Pikiell said. “It will be a long practice, and our guys will be ready to practice. We’re playing a Hall of Fame coach and we’re playing Michigan State, an unbelievable opportunity. We have to play better and with more passion.”
