Paul: 16/8/6/4/0 - we have our endgame leader (and Cam's trey, of course)

[RU848789]

Huge win, just huge, with great defense and just enough offense to win on the road against the #1 team in the country. So happy for the team and us fans. Paul was fantastic, Cliff was great in the first half, Cam with the huge shot and other nice shots, Caleb with the D, and Hyatt, Mag, Wolf, and Simpson all contributing. And this was all despite the foul disparity with 28-11 FTs and 24-11 fouls (to be fair we're very aggressive and did foul more than they did, but not that much more).

 

[RU848789]

If the fouls were more like 20-14, we probably win by 8-9 points, which to me says we're better than Purdue, the #1 team in the country (not that they're necessarily the best team, but are certainly in the running) or at least we were tonight. And the way we've blown out other good teams tells me this is not a fluke - although the way we lost to SHU reminds us we can lose to anyone (the OSU "loss" was a win and Temple was without Paul/Caleb and Miami was without Paul). If we hadn't had the game stolen against OSU, this win would've put us in the top 10, IMO. Yeah, I know this is way ahead of when we should be thinking rankings - but my point is that this team is capable of winning the B1G, being a top 16 seed and making it to the Sweet 16 or beyond. Can't wait to see how this plays out.

 

[new jersey1]

If the fouls were more like 20-14, we probably win by 8-9 points, which to me says we're better than Purdue, the #1 team in the country (not that they're necessarily the best team, but are certainly in the running) or at least we were tonight. And the way we've blown out other good teams tells me this is not a fluke - although the way we lost to SHU reminds us we can lose to anyone (the OSU "loss" was a win and Temple was without Paul/Caleb and Miami was without Paul). If we hadn't had the game stolen against OSU, this win would've put us in the top 10, IMO. Yeah, I know this is way ahead of when we should be thinking rankings - but my point is that this team is capable of winning the B1G, being a top 16 seed and making it to the Sweet 16 or beyond. Can't wait to see how this plays out.

Agree

 

[RU848789]

Wrote up a much longer post elsewhere, but figured I'd put it in this thread rather than starting a new one...

Last year Rutgers basketball had its first ever win over a #1 team, beating Purdue at the RAC. Tonight we beat #1 Purdue 65-64 on the road at Mackey Arena, one of the biggest chambers of horror to play in anywhere. Biggest regular season win in program history, IMO. And considering how the refs stole the game from us at OSU (worst officiating blunder in years, necessitating an apology from the B1G front office for the referreeing errors at the end of the game), we should be 11-3 overall and 3-0 in the B1G (vs. 10-4/2-1), plus we were missing key players in 2 of our losses.

Bottom line is this team is capable of winning the B1G and getting at least to the Sweet 16 and they're so much fun to watch, as they truly play the game so hard (maybe the best defense in the country) and share the game with each other, so well - but a long way to go before any of that. It's also worth noting the foul disparity of 24-11 (and 28 foul shots for them vs. just 11 for us), which is outrageous - yes, we're more physical and foul a bit more, but 21-14 would've been more appropriate/fair and if we had seen that, we would've won by 8-9 instead of having to win it at the end on a trey from Cam Spencer and then having to hold Purdue off at the end.

Amazing game by Mulcahy with 16 points, 8 boards, 6 assists, 4 steals and 0 turnovers (the 0 TOs was the most amazing stat) and strong games from Spencer (14 pts), Cliff (12/6 and he got Edey in foul trouble), Caleb (6/4/2/2, although 3 TOs), and Hyatt (8/6), with nice contributions from Mag, Simpson, and Woolfolk (and even Miller/Reiber got in and helped). But the team defense was the biggest key and it's hard for that to show up in the stat sheet. Great coaching preparation too, as Purdue is a really good team that is really well coached by Matt Painter one of the best and classiest coaches around (like Pikiell), who, speaking of classy, had this to say about RU:

"What they did tonight did not shock our coaching staff. We sold , and sold it and sold it. Those guys are coming. If we're going to war, were swinging by NJ to pick those guys up. Those guys play for keeps."

https://www.cbssports.com/.../purdue-vs-rutgers-score.../