Steve Pikiell ‘learned a lot about’ Rutgers in blowout loss to Tennessee: ‘We won the 2nd half’
LAS VEGAS — Steve Pikiell is looking on the bright side.
Minutes after his team was crushed by No. 17 Tennessee in an 85-60 loss at MGM Grand Arena that was not as close as the score indicated, the Rutgers coach said he “learned a lot about” his team.
For Pikiell, the big takeaway from a game where the Scarlet Knights (4-2) trailed the Volunteers (5-0) by 26 at halftime and as much as 36 points in the second half was that they “kept on fighting.”
Rutgers closed the game on an 18-7 run in the final six minutes and 43 seconds.
“When you come into halftime and you spot a top (20) team that many points, you could do two things,” Pikiell said. “And we just kept fighting. We won the half, 30 to 29, and held them to 29 points. You got to take some positives. Obviously, it’s a loss.”
There were not many for Rutgers to take from its second straight loss, which followed a stunning 13-point home defeat to Central Connecticut State three days earlier.
The Scarlet Knights trailed for the final 38 minutes and 20 seconds, allowed Tennessee to shoot 50% on threes (11-of-22), gave up 21 second-chance points as the Volunteers rebounded 14 of their 28 missed shots, and allowed its two top players — Ja’kobie Gillespie (32 points on 11-of-20 shooting) and Nate Ament (20 points on 7-of-14 shooting) — to nearly outscore them by themselves.
It was an alarming performance against a top-25 team because Rutgers will face many more of them this season. Next week, it opens Big Ten play against No. 1 Purdue and No. 7 Michigan, with matchups against No. 11 Michigan State, No. 13 Illinois and No. 25 Indiana coming later on.
“We have teams like that in the league. We gotta get used to that,” Pikiell said. “We had some moments where we were fine, but we’re still figuring some stuff out. Their size is elite and they just keep bringing guys off the bench. … We have some teams in the league that kind of look like that, but not that big.”
For now, Rutgers will look to bounce back on Tuesday, when it faces Notre Dame in the second of its three games in Las Vegas. The Scarlet Knights defeated the Irish in the same venue last year, and they’ll need to do so again to salvage something from their long trip and prevent things from spiraling further.
“Every game you play is important,” Pikiell said. “It was important to beat Central (Connecticut State). These are really good basketball teams and you got to play well. You got to play 40 minutes. … Hopefully this experience today will help us for the next couple days here. And then we got Purdue and we got Michigan, and that’s what this league is and that’s what we signed up for. Those are the challenges that we have and all of them are tough and you try to take them one at a time.”
