Hot stretch has revived Rutgers’ NCAA Tournament hopes, but Scarlet Knights need more to erase ugly losses

Rutgers freshman guard Dylan Harper put on his Superman cape and may well have saved the Scarlet Knights’ dwindling NCAA Tournament hopes with 28 points and five assists in Wednesday’s 82-73 upset of No. 23 Illinois. The win gave Rutgers its fourth Quad 1 victory — all coming in its last seven outings — and breathed life into a season that once seemed headed for a spiral.

After starting the year ranked No. 25, the Scarlet Knights stumbled to an 8-8 start that nearly buried their Big Dance hopes well before the season’s halfway point. But they are 4-3 in their last seven, with all four wins in Quad 1. Most importantly, they are healthy as they gear up for the stretch run.

Harper missed the last two games with a nagging ankle injury, and he has also been in and out of the lineup because of illness. With him on the floor, though, Rutgers’ ceiling is raised substantially. Of those four Quad 1 wins, Harper has played in three, averaging 22.3 points and 4.3 assists per game against Illinois, Nebraska and UCLA. The lone Quad 1 win without Harper this season, a road victory against Northwestern last week, came courtesy of a 37-point explosion from fellow freshman Ace Bailey.

BartTorvik.com gives Rutgers just a 1.5% chance of making the tourney, still — so the win hardly moved the needle — but the injection of momentum could wind up serving as an inflection point for a team that has seemingly found its footing in recent weeks.

Here’s a look at where its resumé stands with eight regular season games remaining and what it can do to play its way into the NCAA Tournament mix.

Current resumé

• Quad 1 record: 4-9 | Quad 1 wins: vs. Illinois, @ Northwestern, @ Nebraska, vs. UCLA
• Quad 2 record: 2-0 | Quad 2 wins: vs. Notre Dame, vs. Penn State
• Quad 3 record: 0-2 | Quad 3 losses: @ Kennesaw State, vs. Princeton
• Quad 4 record: 6-0 | Quad 4 wins: Wagner, Saint Peter’s,Monmouth, Merrimack, Seton Hall, Columbia

Early losses to Kennesaw State and Princeton — even if they were by a combined three points — are the glaring holes on the Rutgers resumé right now. There’s no erasing that, but Rutgers’ Big Ten stretch run provides plenty of chances to dig out of that hole. 

Upcoming opportunities

As a quick refresher, the NCAA tournament selection committee uses the NET rankings — an evaluation tool that replaced the RPI and sorts the quality of wins and losses by team’s according to the quadrant system. The quadrant system is as follows:

• Quadrant 1: Home 1-30, Neutral 1-50, Away 1-75
• Quadrant 2: Home 31-75, Neutral 51-100, Away 76-135
• Quadrant 3: Home 76-160, Neutral 101-200, Away 135-240
• Quadrant 4: Home 161-353, Neutral 201-353, Away 241-353

The NET rankings update every day, and a Quad 1 win can become a Quad 2 win — or vice versa — depending upon how each opponent finishes the season. It doesn’t matter where opponent was ranked whenever a respective game is played.

With that in mind, Rutgers’ eight remaining regular season games — highlighted by road tilts vs. No. 18 Maryland, No. 24 Maryland and No. 7 Purdue — offers four Quad 1 opportunities (at Maryland, at Oregon, at Michigan and at Purdue), three Quad 2 opportunities (Iowa, at Washington and USC) and one Quad 3 opportunity (Minnesota).

• Sunday, Feb. 9: @ Maryland (Quad 1)
• Wednesday, Feb. 12: vs. Iowa (Quad 2)
• Sunday, Feb. 16: @ Oregon (Quad 1)
• Wednesday, Feb. 19: @ Washington (Quad 2)
• Sunday, Feb. 23: vs. USC (Quad 2)
• Thursday, Feb. 27: @ Michigan (Quad 1)
• Tuesday, March 4: @ Purdue (Quad 1)
• Sunday, March 9: vs. Minnesota (Quad 3)

Realistic path to bubble town?

Rutgers will likely be an underdog in all of its Quad 1 games, and a double-digit dog double-digit in at least three of those contests — including Sunday’s road test against No. 18 Maryland. The most viable path to sneaking in the back door of the NCAA Tournament likely involves of winning at least two of those four, or some combination of one win and a deep run in the Big Ten tourney.

That wouldn’t guarantee anything, because the tournament bubble is different each year and resumes vary. Take last year as an example: Virginia was 2-7 in Quad 1 opportunities, 8-2 in Quad 2 and 13-0 in Quads 3 and 4 — and snuck in over a St. John’s team that was 4-10 in Quad 1, 6-2 in Quad 2 but a combined 10-1 in Quads 3 and 4 with an ugly Quad 3 loss. 

There is no magic number, but six Quad 1 wins seems the minimal requisite number to help offset the Quad 3 losses bogging Rutgers down. That’d look something like beating Iowa, Washington, USC and Minnesota and then picking off two of Maryland, Oregon, Michigan or Purdue on the road. Two wins in that last category and no losses in the games it’ll likely be favored in would at the very least get it into the bubble conversation.

Rutgers is not there yet — not even close. But it is trending upward in a hurry and has opportunities against Big Ten foes to fulfill its preseason promise as a one-and-done-led darkhorse that no team wants to face in March.