Corey Sanders [Jason Towlen – AP]

PREVIOUSLY: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue

NOTE: Rutgers defeated D-II Molloy College in their season-opener on Friday, 86-57. On Sunday, they faced their first D-I opponent and won easily against Drexel, 87-66. Six Knights scored in double figures.

Last year, Rutgers was more or less a running gag for Big Ten basketball – the Scarlet Knights went 7-25 on the season, started conference play with an 0-17 record (before beating a Minnesota team that was also terrible and decimated by suspension in the season finale), and finished 279th nationally in Kenpom’s algorithm, easily the worst of any Big Ten team in his website’s database, which starts in 2002. Eddie Jordan, an alum who’d spent time coaching in the NBA, was fired after the season.

[Preview after the JUMP]

The deeper you dive into their performance, the worst it gets. In games against Big Ten opponents, they were outscored by almost 0.3 points per possession – which translates into blowout losses over 71 possessions per game, which was the highest in the league by a decent margin. Outside of the opener to conference play (against Indiana) and a 3OT loss to Illinois, every loss came by double digits. The lone bright spot – freshman point guard Corey Sanders – was the only aspect of the season that wasn’t a complete disaster.

In comes Steve Pikiell, who formerly coached at Stony Brook and took the Seawolves to the NCAA Tournament last season, his first in over a decade at the school. His first three seasons at Stony Brook produced the combined record of 20-67. He’s going to have to dig out of a similarly deep hole in Piscataway.

LAST SEASON

Unsurprisingly, there were few efficient players for a team that finished outside the Top 300 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, per Kenpom. Only Penn State had a similar situation where there wasn’t a single high-efficiency player on the team, but the Nittany Lions didn’t have the type of anchors on that number that Rutgers did.

Corey Sanders was mostly encouraging because he was able to handle a very heavy load offensively for the Scarlet Knights, which is typically something that bodes well for younger players and their future. He had the fifth-highest usage rate in the conference, behind three seniors and a junior. Sanders doesn’t have great size, but has a relentless attacking style, had a terrific assist rate (with a reasonable level of turnovers) and shot well from inside the arc, but just 32% from three-point range. Needless to say, he’ll be the focal point for RU moving forward.

The other two returnees are Mike Williams and Jonathan Laurent. Williams was a two-guard who also shot 32% from three and was best at getting to the line, where he converted most of his attempts. Laurent was more of a wing, and he was more effective inside the arc – only hitting five threes on the season. A high turnover rate hamstrung his efficiency.

Four Factor Z-Scores from games against Big Ten opponents

The less said about this, the better. They were awful.

NEWCOMERS

Pikiell immediately started reshaping the roster, and Rutgers has plenty of new faces this season. They added a 7’ grad transfer from UNC Wilmington – CJ Gettys – who was effectively out of the rotation by the end of the season, when UNCW made it into the NCAA Tournament. Gettys had astronomical block and foul rates, and would have been the most efficient player on Rutgers’s team last season. Kansas State transfer Nigel Johnson becomes eligible this season: he played almost half of the available minutes in his last season at KSU, but nothing really stood out for him statistically as a point guard. His turnovers and free throw shooting were poor.

The Scarlet Knights also return Deshawn Freeman, who suffered a season-ending knee injury just six games into the season last year. He was a JUCO transfer forward and he played 31 minutes in the season opener for Rutgers.

Pikiell signed a four-man freshman class, including two 3* prospects. Issa Thiam is an interesting Senegalese stretch forward with a versatile game – he decommitted after Eddie Jordan was fired but was convinced to stay by Pikiell, and could be the most promising player on the roster for the Scarlet Knights. The other 3* – Matt Bullock – is a 6’4 tweener who’s known for his defense and rebounding; he’ll probably play as an undersized glue guy at the three. Candido Sa, a JUCO transfer, and Eugene Omoruyi are the other two players in the class – they were unranked in the 247 Composite.

PROJECTED ROTATION

• STARTER (POINT GUARD) – Corey Sanders (So, 6’2, 182): Lightning-quick attacking lead guard who somehow finished with a Top 100 assist rate, not a great outside shooter, had the highest usage rate and shot rate in Big Ten play last season.
• STARTER (WING) – Jonathan Laurent (So, 6’6, 216): Not a good outside shooter but better around the rim, effective on the defensive glass for his size, turned it over too much last season, got to the line some.
• STARTER (WING) – Issa Thiam (Fr, 6’9, 190): Athletic perimeter player who’s reputed to be a strong shooter, probably hit a late growth spurt, could be a force when he puts on more size.
• STARTER (TRADITIONAL FOUR) – Deshawn Freeman (R-Jr, 6’7, 225): Hard to get a good feel for him as a player based on a small sample size of games, seems to have a more traditional game as a four man.
• STARTER (POST) – CJ Gettys (5th-Sr, 7’0, 280): Pretty stereotypical big man profile, great rim protector but a lot of fouls, turnovers without assists, decent two-point percentage and good free throw rate (where he hit 74%).
• BENCH (POINT GUARD) – Nigel Johnson (R-Jr, 6’1, 186): High steal rate back at Kansas State so could be a defense-first point guard, not a great shooter (34%) but took threes, had a good assist rate and bad turnover rate.
• BENCH (GUARD) – Mike Williams (Jr, 6’2, 198): Led Rutgers with 17 points in their season opener, took the second-most amount of shots on the team behind Sanders last season, could be a scoring sixth man.
• BENCH (GUARD – Matt Bullock (Fr, 6’4, 260): Listed weight at his size probably means that he needs to get into shape before he becomes a significant part of the rotation.
• BENCH (TRADITIONAL FOUR) – Eugene Omoruyi (Fr, 6’6, 230): Canadian forward committed to Rutgers right before the school year started, known for his defense and not a very raw offensive game.
• BENCH (STRETCH-FIVE) – Candido Sa (Jr, 6’9, 227): Portuguese forward / center was a great rim protector at his JUCO, supposedly has the ability to step out and shoot the three as well, could be a guy to keep an eye on.

PLAYER COMPARISON

A few years ago, I came up with a system that would compare the statistical profiles of Big Ten players to their historical counterparts by taking the sum of the differences between a given player’s profile and each of the thousand player-seasons from 2008-present in twenty different statistical categories.

# value is the Z-Score of the player’s statistic (or statistics averaged over multiple seasons) relative to the entire sample

I was curious to see what names showed up for Corey Sanders – as discussed earlier in this post, he’s sort of an enigma as a very high-usage player on a horrible team. Some of the player-seasons that showed up are very encouraging (Trey Burke as a freshman, much more effective with his touches, is a bit of a surprise) and some are less so – JaQuan Lyle (who’s a really good comparison in terms of role and, to a lesser extent, style), Nate Mason, Verdell Jones, etc.

Sanders was the only positive for Rutgers last year and one of the biggest storylines for them moving forward is how he’ll mesh with Pikiell, the new coach – it’s hard to believe that he’ll be given such free reign over the offense but the type of skills he provides aren’t found anywhere else on the roster. For Rutgers to start improving, they’ll need to get a lot out of Sanders.

OUTLOOK

It’s going to be pretty much impossible for Rutgers to dig themselves out of that hole any time soon. Overhauling the roster was a good first step, and Pikiell’s rebuilding job at Stony Brook – which did take a while – is a positive sign for their future. Still, escaping the cellar is difficult and it’s a near-guarantee that they’ll finish last in the Big Ten again.