For a program that earned an at-large bid to March Madness in 2022 with one of the lowest NET rankings ever to do so, Rutgers men’s basketball now finds itself in what feels like the basement of Big Ten hoops. From pushing Houston in the second round to the First Four to getting snubbed and then simply falling apart, the Scarlet Knights have taken steps back each year. None of them, however, compares to what we are seeing this year.
This season, the Knights’ NET metric — the NCAA’s evaluation tool that blends strength of schedule, scoring margin, and efficiency- sits at 193. That is the worst NET ranking among high-major teams and sits behind average mid-majors, including Long Island, College of Charleston, and Lindenwood.
Advertisement
The Scarlet Knights have the worst NET ranking in the Big Ten by a significant margin, with Maryland ranking second-lowest at 158. Considering the vast majority of the conference is well above the 100 mark, Rutgers men’s basketball is significantly behind even an average team in the conference.
Although far from perfect, the NET is more than a number. It’s a composite profile of how teams really perform against good competition. Schools with elite talent on the floor almost always have strong NET numbers; teams with talent but no execution do not. After falling apart with a lot of talent last year, this year’s Scarlet Knights boast neither the talent nor the execution to stay remotely competitive in the Big Ten conference.
Last Year: Talented Team That Underachieved
There was genuine excitement last season. Ace Bailey, one of the nation’s most dynamic scorers, brought excitement night in and night out. Dylan Harper, a heralded recruit with creator instincts, offered flashes of brilliance. Together, they represented a potential one-two punch capable of lifting Rutgers from middling Big Ten status into something more competitive. Both ended up as NBA lottery picks after just one season in Piscataway.
Advertisement
Yet the results never matched the talent on paper, with the Scarlet Knights limping to a disappointing and shocking 15-17 record, largely due to the rest of the team being unable to carry their weight. Outside of Tyson Acuff, the team was missing another quality scorer, size at the rim, any semblance of three-point shooting, a coordinated offensive attack, and, most importantly, solid defense.
Nonconference losses to Kennesaw State and Princeton paved the way for a brutal conference slate that saw more losses than wins, including several gut-wrenching losses to better competition and their fair share of getting completely overmatched by the top teams in the conference.
Rutgers struggled to string together wins, particularly against teams it needed to beat to inch up the standings. Close losses piled up, and while Bailey and Harper had highlight moments, the team massively struggled. It couldn’t sustain offensive runs, and defensive lapses at crucial stretches became too predictable. On top of all of that, none of the sharpshooters that the team brought in during the off-season transfer portal really worked out.
The NET — which blends strength of schedule, efficiency, and results — reflected those shortcomings. Despite the high-end talent on the roster, Rutgers sat too far back in the national pecking order to seriously threaten for an NCAA Tournament bid.
Advertisement
Yet, as poor as they did, the program still ranked 103rd in the country in the end-of-season NET rankings. Rutgers fans would still trade last season for this season in a heartbeat.
This Season: From Disappointment to Distress
Fast forward to this year, and Rutgers hasn’t answered the questions that lingered at the end of last season — it’s raised new ones. There was some hope among the fan base that this team would revert to playing “Pikiell-ball” without the high-end talent on the roster from last season.
“Pikiell-ball” is best described as a style of playing that puts pressure on opposing offenses the entire game, emphasizes rebounding, and getting to the free-throw line. Essentially, it means dragging your opponent’s offense into the mud and scrapping for a victory.
Advertisement
Rutgers was expected to play above its talent level by playing tenacious defense and working around the horn to generate quality looks. Would that end up sending the Knights back to the tournament? Probably not, but few could have imagined the dropoff from a poor season last year to the disastrous season that RU appears headed towards in 2025.
Instead, the average possession for the Scarlet Knights sees hardly any action, with the primary ball-handler or someone else ending up dribbling through the shot clock before hoisting up a tough shot in the midrange. There is very little attacking the rim outside of Tariq Francis, and outside of Harun Zrno, very little three-point shooting. On defense, Rutgers cannot guard the rim, cannot stop speedy guards, cannot protect the paint, and cannot rotate to contest open three-pointers, especially against stronger, more modern offenses.
The center play is atrocious and inconsistent to the point where Pikiell opted to pull Ogbole after just six minutes against Penn despite a drastic size advantage, not play the backup centers, and have the forwards do their best underneath the basket. That is not the way most teams operate in college basketball, where the name of the game is drive-and-kick possessions with movement, attacking the basket with authority, and dishing to open three-point shooters.
What’s most alarming is how the team has lost games. Rutgers isn’t merely dropping close contests; it’s being run off the floor by quality opponents, and in the case of Central Connecticut State, being dominated by a team they were projected to beat by 20 points. All of these combine to make an unsettling sign that competitive fire isn’t consistently there. Losses come by double digits. Defensive intensity fluctuates. The team’s few wins against “inferior” opponents feel like a fight to survive.
Advertisement
Games against teams like Penn, where Rutgers should assert authority, have instead showcased how thin the margin is between victory and vulnerability. When Rutgers has to grind — and sometimes squeak by — opponents it should handle with relative ease, it erodes confidence rather than builds it.
This isn’t the slow crawl of a team rebuilding. This is the slide of a program that had the pieces to be much better last year — and somehow is twice as bad now. If Pikiell cannot adapt to the modern era of college basketball and acquire the players that are needed to compete in the Big Ten conference, then he is not the right coach to guide the program any further, despite the success that the team was having in the past.
Many point to the NIL issues Rutgers has suffered; however, NIL doesn’t explain losses to teams like Central Connecticut State. Nothing drastic is likely to happen this year due to contract buyouts, but turning around a team in this situation with the same staff is a herculean task.
From Tumbling to Stagnant: Where Does Rutgers Go?
The harsh reality is that Rutgers’ slide isn’t just about bad luck, tough scheduling, or a rough shooting month. It’s a symptom of a program that can no longer lean solely on grit, defense, and rebounding to overcome talent gaps.
Advertisement
The Big Ten — and college basketball as a whole — has shifted toward spacing, pace, shot creation, and vertical threats. Rutgers instead leans on lineups without much shooting or rim protection and an offensive approach that lags behind modern basketball philosophies.
Talent acquisition has not kept pace with the rest of the conference. Development has plateaued. Identity, once so clear, has blurred. While NIL challenges are real, they don’t explain the lack of cohesion on the court — or why lesser-resourced teams have outplayed Rutgers in virtually every phase of the game.
A NET ranking of 193 isn’t the end-all, be-all number, but it’s an indictment of where Rutgers stands in relation to peers, rivals, and expectations. Rutgers once broke the trend by making the NCAA Tournament with a historically low NET, but has since fallen so far from that ranking that the postseason now feels like a distant memory rather than a realistic benchmark.
