For the second year in a row, Rutgers and Notre Dame will meet at the Players Era men’s tournament in Las Vegas, and on Tuesday afternoon, both programs will strive to avoid an 0-2 start to the week.
The Scarlet Knights beat the Fighting Irish on the first day of the inaugural tournament last year, a thrilling 85-84 overtime game in which Rutgers’ Dylan Harper scored 36 points and Notre Dame’s Matt Allocco hit six 3-pointers. Of course, Harper and Allocco are gone and both teams are vastly different now.
On Monday, Notre Dame (4-2) got 24 points from Markus Burton in a 71-61 loss to Kansas in the opening game. Burton and Jalen Haralson (13 points) helped Notre Dame hang within four points of the Jayhawks in the second half.
Burton was on last year’s Irish squad but sustained a knee injury less than four minutes into the Rutgers game. Now, he’s raised his season average to 20.2 points per game on a 48.2% clip from the field.
Before Notre Dame left for Las Vegas, coach Micah Shrewsberry explained that one of his assistant coaches was working ahead on scouting Rutgers, but “what we give to our team is not going to be as in depth as a regular game.”
“I think we’re in a much better position system-wise offensively and defensively and how to handle something unknown. It’s different than where we were last year,” Shrewsberry said. “We feel good about what we’ve done up to this point to be able to handle this.”
Rutgers (4-2) was barely competitive in an 85-60 loss to No. 17 Tennessee on Monday. The Scarlet Knights gave up 8-of-13 shooting from 3-point range in the first half and were outrebounded 43-28 for the game.
They trailed 56-30 at halftime and by as many as 36 points, but coach Steve Pikiell liked what he saw when Rutgers outscored Tennessee in the second half with the game out of reach and reserves on the floor.
“We kept fighting,” Pikiell said. “This was one of those games. Second half, we won the half. When you come into halftime and you spot a (top-20) team that many points, you can do two things. And we just kept fighting.
“You gotta take some positives. Obviously it’s a loss and we got to turn this around (Tuesday) and play a really good Notre Dame team who’s one of the better offensive rebounding teams, too, in the country.”
Freshman Harun Zrno had a career-best 14 points for Rutgers against Tennessee. Dylan Grant scored 10 and leads Rutgers with 15.5 points per game.
