While the Orange started the conference season feasting on the Big East’s cellar dwellers, the Scarlet Knights have been doing the exact opposite, starting off their Big East run against Pitt, UConn and Marquette. Oh yeah, they played North Carolina in their final non-conference game. Throw in Saturday’s game against the ‘Cuse and what you get is a five-game stretch of opponents ranked in the RPI’s top 25 with three of those (UNC, Pitt and UConn) in the top 10.

While you may look at Rutgers’ schedule and see four straight losses, they stayed with Pitt until the last few minutes and came just short on a 21-point comeback against Marquette at the RAC.  Rutgers won’t be in the mix to take the conference crown, but they’re definitely sending a message that they’re not going to be embarrassed on their home floor during league play.

The Rutgers offense, without question, runs through freshman guard Mike Rosario, who comes in averaging 17.6 points per game, but he also takes some liberties with shot selection. Since Rosario is the only true offensive threat, Rutgers will have to rely on the defensive specialties of Gregory Echenique and Hamady N’Diaye to force some turnovers and hope it can convert the opportunities that DePaul couldn’t. At home, this is a game that Syracuse wins in a walk, but playing in Piscataway hasn’t been easy for the Orange in recent years. I still see SU taking this one, though don’t be surprised to see Rutgers give the ‘Cuse a few scares.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 11:11 pm by Brian G. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.