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Rutgers needs to make history in order to avoid agony.
With an opportunity to secure a second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament and staring at a surprisingly favorable path to the Big Ten Tournament final, fourth-seeded Rutgers fell flat Friday in an 84-74 loss to fifth-seeded Iowa in the quarterfinals. So, the Scarlet Knights instead head to Selection Sunday hoping to become the first team ever with a NET ranking worse than 73 (St. John’s in 2019) to receive an at-large berth.
Playing immediately after top-seeded Indiana lost to open up the top half of the Big Ten bracket, Rutgers jumped out to a quick 10-point lead but was undone by a six-minute drought without a field goal in the middle of the first half. Dropping into a zone defense that forced Rutgers to take outside shots and miss nine straight, Iowa used a 15-1 run to take a 28-20 lead, led by nine at the half and opened it up to as many as 18.
But the most embarrassing part of the loss was that strength and conditioning coach David Van Dyke received two separate technical fouls and was ejected for barking at the officials from the end of the bench. Rutgers was called for 24 fouls to Iowa’s 14 and outscored 25-10 at the free-throw line in a tightly-whistled game between two teams with physical identities.
The Hawkeyes weren’t quite as potent as when they rained 19 3-pointers Thursday in a 112-point outburst against punch-less Northwestern, but they didn’t resemble the team that couldn’t buy a basket in Piscataway on Jan. 19, either. Still stinging from that 48-46 loss, marked by a season-low scoring output and a controversial decisive whistle, Iowa openly “wanted” the rematch – and seized the opportunity.
A win for Rutgers would’ve meant it first trip to the semifinals in any conference tournament since playing spoiler in the Big East in 1998 … a semifinals matchup with Indiana, which it has beaten seven of the last eight meetings … and the end of a discussion about how its soft non-conference schedule undermines a 12-8 Big Ten record and its best regular-season finish in eight seasons since joining the loaded conference.
Rutgers’ NET ranking is 77 despite an impressive 6-5 record against Quad 1 opponents.
Geo Baker scored 23 and Cliff Omoruyi added 17, but it wasn’t enough when Rutgers’ bench contributed zero points and First-Team All-Big Ten forward Ron Harper was held to 13 on 5-of-16 shooting. Iowa’s Keegan Murray collected 26 points and eight rebounds.
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