Rutgers Basketball Team Accepts Bid to NIT After NCAA Tournament Snub

The bubble burst on the Rutgers men's basketball team Sunday night.

The Scarlet Knights’ dreams of a third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament were dashed Sunday night when the selection committee failed to extend an invitation to the team.

And, when you consider the team was seemingly a lock to go to the NCAA Tournament in 2020 before the season was canceled in response to the COVID-19 health crisis, this would have made four straight seasons, in effect. Heady stuff for what had been a woebegone program for decades.

Instead, Sunday’s snub left crestfallen Rutgers fans to sift through the stats and wonder how a team that finished 19-14 overall, has a resume that includes a road victory over then top-ranked Purdue, advanced to the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals with a thumping of Michigan and is ranked No. 40 nationally in the key metric known as the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) isn’t among the Field of 68 – bubble team or not.

Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell confirmed Sunday night that the Scarlet Knights have accepted an invitation to play in the NIT.

The top-seeded Scarlet Knights will face Hofstra on Tuesday, March 14 at 7 p.m. at Jersey Mike's Arena. The game will be carried by ESPNU.

A chance to play in the NIT was not treated as a consolation prize by Pikiell, who said, "I don't want this season to end."

Leaving Rutgers out of the NCAA field was a head-scratcher for even the most studied Bracketologists who figured the Scarlet Knights had done enough for the selection committee to overlook late-season losses to lightweights such as Minnesota and Nebraska. CBS Sports Jerry Palm, for instance, had Rutgers as one of the final at-large teams getting into the tournament. And, ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi projected Rutgers as a No. 11 seed in the Midwest where it was on a collision course with No. 6 San Diego State.

Rutgers will have company, along with North Carolina and Oklahoma State, in its misery when the NCAA Tournament begins Tuesday and teams like Arizona State (Arizona State!) are running up and down the court.

The one silver lining to an NIT invitation is that it means we haven’t seen the last of players such as Paul Mulcahy and Caleb McConnell.

McConnell, a fifth-year senior, is a Naismith National Defensive Player of the Year semifinalist. Mulcahy, a senior, plays with all-out hustle. They, along with big man Cliff Omoruyi, carried on the legacy started by Scarlet Knights stars Ron Harper Jr. and Geo Baker.

McConnell sat out with an injury as Rutgers gamely tried to upset Purdue for a second time this season. Rutgers came up short in that game (a 70-65 loss) and came up short in its bid for an NCAA Tournament invitation.

"We'll do what we do here at Rutgers and bounce back," Pikiell said. 

Story by: Chuck O'Donnell
Photo Credit: Rutgers Athletics