Eddie Jordan played on a Rutgers basketball team that won 31 games in a row before it went to the 1976 Final Four. Jordan now has coached a pair of Rutgers basketball teams to 30 straight losses in the Big Ten.
Rutgers is worst Big Ten basketball team in a long, long time
February 24, 2016 at 2:22PM
I don't know what record this has established, but it has to be something: 31 in a row to the good, and then 30 to the bad, four decades apart at the same school.
We also can add this historical note: The Gophers were the first 1-13 team ever to go into a game justifiably overconfident.
The Gophers had received an incredible outpouring of accolades for the upset of No. 6 Maryland last week. Coach Richard Pitino's athletes seemed to take the court Tuesday night with the attitude that Rutgers would simply roll over and play comatose.
It took a half, but the athletes were right.
The Gophers played down to Rutgers' level in the first half, and that is a long way down. The Scarlet Knights entered at No. 272 in Ratings Percentage Index. The 79 schools rated below this collection should sue the person who invented the RPI for defamation.
The Gophers led 32-31 at halftime, and then Rutgers really hit its stride, streaking to an 83-61 loss.
The 22-point margin exceeded the Knights' average margin of defeat in the conference by 8/10ths of a point.
The Gophers did have an unfair advantage over a few of those teams that allowed Rutgers to stay closer than 22. The Knights are playing without freshman Corey Sanders, suspended for two weeks for a violation of team rules.
What would that be? He tried to make his teammates look bad by dribbling without hitting his foot.
Sanders was the Knights' leading scorer and alleged to be their best player. That wouldn't take much.
Honest. Let me go back to the crazy Gophers season of George Hanson coaching Ollie Shannon in 1970-71. Credit me with 45 years as an observer. Rutgers was the worst Big Ten team witnessed as an invader of the Barn.
Rutgers' last Big Ten win was an otherworldly upset of Wisconsin on Jan. 11, 2015. Jordan's Knights lost the last 15 to end 2015.
That team was something to write home about compared to this one.
Rutgers doesn't have much size to start with, and it was missing 6-foot-9 senior Greg Lewis because of injury.
Most astounding was the Knights' inability to master the routine aspects of handling a basketball. Poor Jonathan Laurent, a 6-foot-6 freshman forward. The kid worked hard and moved around defenders, but the ball ricocheted off him as if he was a racquetball wall.
Laurent was credited with five of Rutgers' 21 turnovers. The Gophers were given credit for 12 steals. Half of those came when the Knights knocked the ball away from themselves.
The one-point lead at halftime was a mirage. Everyone knew that, including the Knights. Minnesota's quick guards started to do what they wanted. Joey King and Dupree McBrayer hit the open threes they were permitted, and the blowout surfaced quickly.
Pitino arrived for his postgame media session and was encouraged to find some glory in this two-game winning streak. He tried but his heart wasn't in it, realizing (without stating) the feeble challenge his team faced on this night.
Eddie Jordan was asked the unanswerable after the game: "How do you stay positive?''
Jordan has an NBA background and in that league, with 15 losses in a row, he probably would have cracked wise and said, "You don't.''
This is college, so Jordan said: "We're going to have a day off tomorrow. They still have a life to live. They've got to get their work done in school. I told them I didn't want any red flags as far as being late for class … "
D.J. Foreman, Rutgers' leading scorer with 13, was asked the same question.
"If we lose on the court, we have to keep our dignity, because that's all we have at the end of the day,'' Foreman said. "Even with the losses coming in, we know we're young and injured, so it's not like we're just stinking it up.''
Hang in there, D.J., even if there were 7,000 actual witnesses in the Barn who might disagree with that last thought.
Patrick Reusse can be heard 3-6 p.m. weekdays on AM-1500.
Basketball Across Minnesota: Aaliyah Crump, who committed to Texas, is spending her senior year at Montverde Academy in Florida on a team filled with Division I recruits.
