Monday, November 22, 2021 | 7:00 p.m.
Jersey Mike's Arena | Piscataway, N.J.
TV: Big Ten Plus (Pxp: Dom Savino, Color: Tim Catalfamo)
Radio: Rutgers Sports Properties Radio Network (WCTC 1450 AM/WOR 710 AM; Jerry Recco and Austin Johnson)
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The Rutgers men's basketball is back at Jersey Mike's Arena to take on the Lafayette Leopards on Monday night at 7:00 p.m.
The Scarlet Knights are coming off their only defeat of the season at WinTrust Arena against DePaul on Thursday night.
The Blue Demons beat RU 73-70 behind a second half performance where the team made their last six shots, including four three-pointers.
Rutgers and head coach
Steve Pikiell will look to stay undefeated at home against the Leopards, who have not won a game yet this season.
Scouting Lafayette
Lafayette (0-4) returns 4-of-5 starters from a season ago, including a 2021 Patriot League All-Rookie performer Kyle Jenkins who has scored in double-figures in each game this season, including 18 Friday night at Duke.
Senior guard Tyrone Perry is averaging 13.3 points-per-game on the young season and scored a career-high 25 points in the team's opener at Syracuse.
Junior forward Neal Quinn went scoreless in the season-opener at Syracuse and quickly righted the ship. He collected his first career double-double against Cornell with 19 points and a career-high 13 rebounds with five assists before leading the Leopards in points, rebounds and assists at Penn.
Freshman C.J. Fulton continues to show promise for Lafayette and made his way into the starting lineup at Penn and Duke, scoring a season-best seven points with a block and a steal against the Blue Devils.
Lafayette's Fran O'Hanlon has been the head coach for the Leopards for 27 years. O'Hanlon has coached the most games in the history of the Patriot League (764) and has collected 354 career wins.
What to watch for
The Scarlet Knights will look to come out firing and run up the score early against the Leopards. In all four games so far this season, Rutgers has trailed at halftime. RU has outscored it's opponents by 44 total points in the second half and went on to win three of those games.
Pikiell wants to see his team rebound from Thursday night's game where DePaul took 27 more free throws than the Scarlet Knights.
Key Quote from the head coach
"You can't defend the free throw line," Pikiell said. "We fouled too much. When you are on the road, when you have that disparity, I was disappointed that we didn't rebound missed free throws. You have to make up for a lot of points when you put a team on the foul line that much. I was most disappointed with our free throw blockouts. I have to do a better job making sure we do that. We weren't able to overcome that in the game, fouling was a huge issue. We have to do a better job of rebounding without fouling."
History against Lafayette
On Dec. 22, 2019, Rutgers defeated Lafayette by a 63-44 final at home.
Guards
Geo Baker and
Paul Mulcahy had 10 points a piece in the game and former Scarlet Knights center
Myles Johnson had a career-high 18 points.
The Leopards now-senior Tyrone Perry started and scored eight points with a pair of 3-pointers in the game while now-junior Neal Quinn scored five in 17 minutes off the bench.
Top Rutgers performers of late
Ron Harper Jr. put together his fourth double-double of the season on Thursday night against DePaul.
The senior had never had four consecutive double-doubles in his career with the Scarlet Knights. Harper shot 50 percent from the field (6-12), as well as three-point range (4-8) and collected a 11 total rebounds.
Geo Baker scored 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting and seemed to hit each of his three long distance shots on the night in major moments for the Scarlet Knights on Thursday night. Baker continued to show off his play-making ability with six assists.
That marks his most assists in a non-conference game since his six dishes vs. Bryant on back in Nov. of 2019.
188' Feet with Aundre Hyatt
Throwback jerseys!
The Scarlet Knights will be rocking throwback jerseys on Monday night paying tribute to the teams on the 19970s at RU.
Check out the threads that RU will rock on Monday night below:
