Before The Tip: Indiana at Rutgers

When Indiana travels to Piscataway to take on Rutgers, it will face yet another uber-physical team, but this team will be in an environment where it's not lost in 11 games this season.

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There have only been a handful of road wins in the Big Ten so far this season, and Rutgers has one of them. Immediately after their best player, Geo Baker, broke his thumb in practice, the Scarlet Knights traveled to Nebraska and crushed the Cornhuskers, 79-62. They followed that win with their third quad-one win over Penn State at home, which capped off a six-game win streak.

It’s clear that this Rutgers team is one of the few near the bottom of the Big Ten in preseason rankings to be overachieving this year, as 12 Big Ten teams are ranked inside the top-36 by KenPom.com as of Jan. 14.

As the Big Ten season fleshes itself out, it appears road games are going to be even tougher to come by than in past seasons, and Indiana is carrying its most positive momentum since beating Florida State in early-December, with two road games next up on the schedule.

The Hoosiers haven’t exactly provided evidence that they can win on the road in conference play, dropping both games at Wisconsin and at Maryland in big ways. Winning on the road in Piscataway won’t be much easier than the first two stops. The Scarlet Knights are 11-0 at home – one of two Big Ten teams to remain undefeated overall at home – and have wins over No. 13 Seton Hall, No. 22 Wisconsin and No. 35 Penn State in New Jersey.

What will make finding victory more difficult is the style of play Rutgers uses. The Scarlet Knights are as physical – if not more physical – than Ohio State, which sometimes got to Indiana during the Hoosiers’ win over the Buckeyes in Bloomington on Saturday.

To put together a win over Rutgers on the road would be a good addition to Indiana’s tournament resume, but it’s going to require a continuation of the physicality and reliable guard play transferred from Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall to other arenas. Wednesday’s game and the game at Nebraska will prove whether that is possible for this Indiana team or not.

It’s been some time since Indiana has played a team like Rutgers, who is heavily weighted toward defensive efficiency versus offensive efficiency. The Scarlet Knights are a top-15 team defensively and barely crack the top-100 offensively. That imbalance was even more drastic last season, and it’s directly tied to the physical play Rutgers uses.

All it takes is one look at Rutgers’ roster to realize it needs to play physically to find success. Starting center Myles Johnson outweighs Indiana’s heaviest player – Trayce Jackson-Davis – by 10 pounds, at 255, and backup forward Shaq Carter weighs 245. Two other starters – Ron Harper and Akwasi Yeboah – weigh at least 230 pounds. All of those players outweigh Joey Brunk (230) and Justin Smith (227), the next two heaviest starters on Indiana’s roster.

But Indiana held its own against a physical Ohio State team, which was one of the primary takeaways from that win, and Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell recognized that.

“Beating that Ohio State team isn’t easy,” he said to the Rutgers media Monday. “(Indiana’s) a good post-up team. We haven’t played one of those in awhile.”

The Hoosier score 55 percent of their points from inside the three-point arc and shoot 52 percent from two-point range. But Rutgers allows the eighth-lowest field goal percentage overall and from two-point range. And in conference games, it’s limited its opponents to the lowest total rebounds of any Big Ten team. Much of that is attributed to that physicality that Rutgers plays with.

When discussing the early success of Rutgers, the added exclamation after most points of emphasis is “without Geo Baker,” because Baker was the Scarlet Knights’ most reliable scorer last season. Baker is expected to miss Wednesday's game as well. If it was going to get out of the cellar of the Big Ten in 2019-20, it would need growth from key contributors. It seems to have found some of that growth, at least early on.

Ron Harper has stepped up in major ways already this season. A guard, at 6-foot--6, 230 pounds, Harper has boosted his points per game from 7.8 to 12.2. Aside from Jacob Young – who is addressed later – Harper has become the player Rutgers has leaned on when need be, which is a far cry from his 22 minutes per game and 19 starts last year.

Myles Johnson is another sophomore who’s shown major growth after his freshman season and has proven that he’s more than just a big body inside. At 6-10, 255, he’s recorded four double-doubles, including 18-and-14 at Nebraska, and has started 16-of-16 games after not starting a game last year.

Montez Mathis and Caleb McConnell are two other true sophomores from the same class as Harper and Johnson and have both been thrust into key spots this season. Mathis has started 16-of-16 games, and McConnell has started 12. McConnell didn’t start any last year.

Those four sophomores contribute 20-plus minutes each, but Rutgers is deep. Nine players including Baker, average double-digit minutes per game.

Junior guard Jacob Young has been a jolt for Rutgers off the bench since Geo Baker has been inactive. In the last three games, he’s come off the bench and scored in double-digits. The Texas transfer is in the middle of a breakout campaign and has become a lasting scoring option for a Rutgers team that is looking for different ways to win on a game-by-game basis.

At Nebraska, it was two double-doubles from Myles Johnson and Ron Harper, along with 16 points from Young. Against Penn State, it was 22-of-29 free throw attempts, along with 13 points from Young. Against Illinois, there wasn’t much in a 54-51 loss except for 16 points from Young.

He can score from most areas on the court, so Indiana is going to have to account for him at every level.

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