Fonseca wrote a nice article on the St. Peter's win. I especially liked how he framed it as a great game to learn from, as it was close, but we didn't blow it and the last 4 minutes showed how good we can be with great defensive/rebounding intensity with the game on the line, as we closed on an 11-0 run, not giving them any easy shots. It's behind a paywall, but I added a nice excerpt from the article, below.
https://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketbal...ters-could-pay-dividends-later-in-season.html
Two hours of suffering on Monday could lead to euphoria two months down the line.
That is one of the main takeaways for Rutgers after it survived a scare from Saint Peter’s in a nail-biting 75-65 victory at Jersey Mike’s Arena. The No. 24 Scarlet Knights (2-0) had to fight tooth-and-nail to defeat the Peacocks (0-3) — who battled Seton Hall and UMass Lowell down to the wire last week and nearly derailed Rutgers’ dream season before it got off the ground — and they are better off for it.
The hosts trailed for the final eight minutes of the first half, facing a 5-point deficit at the break. Steve Pikiell’s team took control with a 20-6 to start the second half, but Saint Peter’s responded with a 15-5 run to retake the lead. The teams exchanged the lead three times in the subsequent 94 seconds, with the Peacocks going ahead by one point with 4:07 to play. Then the Scarlet Knights shut the door on their visitors, closing the game on an 11-0 run, forcing Saint Peter’s to miss its final eight field goal attempts and three free throws.
With that, a team with nine newcomers — four transfers and five freshmen — learned a valuable lesson about itself.
And here's the Geo halftime tweet. Maybe it's obvious that Pike wouldn't have been happy with the D in the first half, but as per the tweet and what Geo said in the post-game show, having been there with Pike for 5 years, he knew what Pike thought about the poor defensive effort and absolutely knew we'd see improvement in the 2nd half. Also liked his comment about this being the best offense we've had in awhile. I don't listen to the games on the radio though - how is he doing? I like his post-game comments.
https://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketbal...ters-could-pay-dividends-later-in-season.html
Two hours of suffering on Monday could lead to euphoria two months down the line.
That is one of the main takeaways for Rutgers after it survived a scare from Saint Peter’s in a nail-biting 75-65 victory at Jersey Mike’s Arena. The No. 24 Scarlet Knights (2-0) had to fight tooth-and-nail to defeat the Peacocks (0-3) — who battled Seton Hall and UMass Lowell down to the wire last week and nearly derailed Rutgers’ dream season before it got off the ground — and they are better off for it.
The hosts trailed for the final eight minutes of the first half, facing a 5-point deficit at the break. Steve Pikiell’s team took control with a 20-6 to start the second half, but Saint Peter’s responded with a 15-5 run to retake the lead. The teams exchanged the lead three times in the subsequent 94 seconds, with the Peacocks going ahead by one point with 4:07 to play. Then the Scarlet Knights shut the door on their visitors, closing the game on an 11-0 run, forcing Saint Peter’s to miss its final eight field goal attempts and three free throws.
With that, a team with nine newcomers — four transfers and five freshmen — learned a valuable lesson about itself.
And here's the Geo halftime tweet. Maybe it's obvious that Pike wouldn't have been happy with the D in the first half, but as per the tweet and what Geo said in the post-game show, having been there with Pike for 5 years, he knew what Pike thought about the poor defensive effort and absolutely knew we'd see improvement in the 2nd half. Also liked his comment about this being the best offense we've had in awhile. I don't listen to the games on the radio though - how is he doing? I like his post-game comments.
