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Thursday / December 12.
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    • Rutgers

    By AMAN KIDWAI

    WASHINGTON D.C. — Rutgers Basketball has not been good for a very long time, but all indications are that’s eventually going to change.

    Under first-year head coach Steve Pikiell, the Scarlet Knights (15-17) have more than doubled their win total from last season and now have their first winning streak in conference play after beating Ohio State, 66-57, in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament at the Verizon Center.

    “We learned how to compete this year,” Pikiell said. “We couldn’t close out some games. But it’s a process when you’re building a program. It takes steps.”

    Rutgers advances to face No. 6 Northwestern (21-10) in Thursday’s nightcap. After helping the program get its first Big Ten Tournament win and finally stringing together consecutive conference victories, guard Corey Sanders believes this could be a turning point.

    “To come out the way we did and do something that nobody thought we could do besides our fans… we had faith the whole time,” he said. “I feel like we could do the same thing tomorrow against Northwestern.”

    Rutgers

    For the first time since he took the Rutgers job in June, Steve Pikiell will return to his old stomping grounds at Stony Brook on Saturday night (7 p.m., ESPN3).

    And he will do so as the coach of a Scarlet Knights team that is off to a red-hot 8-1 start, having already won more games this season than former coach Eddie Jordan did all of last year when Rutgers went 7-25.

    “It was part of the contract [which stipulates a home-and-home with Stony Brook coming to the Rutgers Athletic Center in 2017], but Stony Brook for 11 years just was a special place for me and my family,” Pikiell, who won his 200th career game on Tuesday against Central Connecticut, said by phone. “The community, they embraced us and embraced the program so it’s one of those things where you go back with a lot of thoughts and memories and when you get the Rutgers job, you don’t really get a chance to say goodbye and thank you to all those great people and all the great people at Stony Brook University.

    “So you go back with some mixed emotions, you know what I mean?”

    Rutgers

    PISCATAWAY, N.J. — New Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said the basketball team was in “awful shape” physically when he took over for Eddie Jordan last spring.

    And none of his players disagreed.

    “We probably were one of the worst-conditioned teams he’s ever had,” Rutgers sophomore guard Corey Sanders said at Tuesday’s Media Day.

    Jordan went 29-68 in three seasons at Rutgers, including a 7-25 campaign last season in which the Scarlet Knights finished 1-17 in the Big Ten. His alma mater fired him in March, and then hired Pikiell as his replacement out of Stony Brook.

    Pikiell, in turn, brought in David VanDyke as his strength and conditioning coach after VanDyke had spent the previous 11 years at Stony Brook.

    Copyright 2016 Zagsblog. Partner of iOne Digital / Cassius Network
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