NEW YORK – Jay Wright knows a thing or two about culture-building. So when the former Villanova coach spent the past week diving into Rutgers basketball to prepare for CBS’s broadcast of the Scarlet Knights’ 81-74 loss to Michigan State Saturday, he knew he had to speak with Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey.
On Friday, Wright attended the Scarlet Knights’ practice and film session in Piscataway, then had a 10-minute chat with the two NBA-bound freshmen. He never coached a one-and-done player while winning 520 games and two NCAA titles on the Main Line, but he sent plenty of talent to the NBA, including three-fifths of the New York Knicks’ starting lineup.
“I wanted to meet them after practice,” Wright said Friday. “Of all the top freshmen I’ve watched over the years, those two play the game the right way – to win, and as good teammates – at that young age better than anyone I can remember.”
Yet the wins have not come at the rate anyone expected. The Scarlet Knights are 10-10 overall and 3-6 in the Big Ten, staring down the barrel of becoming the first team with two impending top-five draft picks to miss the Big Dance.
A big part of that, for sure, is Harper’s health problems – a bad flu followed by an ankle sprain that limited him to 13 minutes and six points against the Spartans Saturday. Another part of it: This is a sport dominated by 23-, 24- and 25-year-old men right now.
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“It’s always been hard to win with freshmen; now it’s another level,” Wright said. “They’re playing against Ace Baldwin of Penn State; he’s 24 years old and he’s played five years of college basketball. Think about what Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey are going to be five years from now, what they’re going to look like with their basketball knowledge and experience. And they’re playing against these guys now.”
He added, “Because of Covid, because of NIL, there are more high-level older players in college basketball than there ever were before. To win now with freshmen is virtually impossible.”
Wright’s first blockbuster recruiting class at Villanova, led by Newark East Side grad and future NBA guard Randy Foye, took three seasons to reach the NCAA Tournament. As sophomores they got drummed out of the NIT quarterfinals by Rutgers.
“We had the No. 2 recruiting class in the country and for the first two years we went to the NIT, and they all stayed and their third year went to the NCAA Tournament,” Wright said. “Not until their third year did they really get it. In their second year we lost at Rutgers in the quarterfinals of the NIT. We were more talented but they were older and more mature. Coming out of that we were like, ‘You know what? We’re going to be older next year and we’re going to be good.’”
For this Rutgers squad – and for most of college basketball now – there is no carryover to next year.
“Coaching has become completely different – it’s become much more like junior college coaching, where you’re going to have guys for one, maybe two years,” Wright said. “Until we get some constraints on transfer portal, that’s what it’s going to be.”
‘Team beats players’
Of course, some programs have managed the shifting landscape better than others. Like Michigan State. Speaking with reporters earlier this week about Harper and Bailey, Tom Izzo put his finger on it.
“Those two players are really good, but as we say, you’ve got to hope teams beat players,” Izzo said. “The collection as a whole is really what’s important to how you win games.”
Michigan State has the benefit of continuity (the Spartans rank 103rd in the country in minutes continuity from last season to this one, compared to 298th for Rutgers). That’s an enormous intangible.
“You see it in the NBA and you see it in the NFL – the best players don’t always win games,” Izzo said after Saturday’s contest. “The only way you can have that camaraderie and chemistry is to play together. And I think they’ve done a pretty damn good job. This team (Rutgers) lost a couple of tight games with freshmen – that’s going to happen sometimes, no matter how good they are.”
A huge turnout, a bitter pill
It’s a bitter pill for the Rutgers fans who took over Madison Square Garden Saturday, comprising about 90 percent of a crowd of 17,480.
“I give the Rutgers people a lot of credit, man,” Izzo said. “It was red in so many areas.”
“To play in front of 17,000 Rutgers fans, it was dope,” Bailey said.
That’s an incredible turnout amidst a campaign that is falling far short of their hopes.
“Experience does matter, no matter who you are,” Izzo said. “I’m not saying it to stick up for Steve (Pikiell) or any coach; I’m telling you the truth. It’s very difficult to have a lot of guys who haven’t played together, and freshmen are freshmen. Yeah they might be 10-10, but I think the best part of their season is yet to come – if they can get Dylan healthy. Your quarterback makes all the other players better. As much as it was a break for us, I felt bad because he seems like a great kid.”
There is never a good time to get sick or hurt, but Harper’s maladies struck just as the Scarlet Knights finally seemed be getting on the same page with a hard-hat win over UCLA and a balanced triumph at Nebraska.
“This team’s going to be a tough out by the end of the season,” Izzo said.
He might be right, but for the scarlet-clad believers who turned the World’s Most Famous Arena into a big-stage RAC Saturday, that doesn’t make 10-10 any easier to swallow.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
