With two of the most talented players in college basketball on its roster, Rutgers had a major chance to become one of the best stories in this sport this winter.

And at the midpoint of the season, the Scarlet Knights are being talked about nationally — but for all the wrong reasons.

Through 16 games, Rutgers (8-8, 1-4) is “the biggest disappointment” in college basketball, according to Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish of CBS Sports. The national writers led their latest episode of the “Eye on College Basketball” podcast on Friday with 20 minutes about the Scarlet Knights after their home loss to No. 20 Purdue on Thursday night pushed them even further from the NCAA Tournament discussion.

Norlander laid out the potentially historic failure Steve Pikiell’s program is on the brink of — becoming the first team with two top-3 NBA Draft picks to miss March Madness — in his weekly Court Report on Wednesday, and he expanded on his thoughts on Rutgers likely wasting Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey’s lone collegiate season on Friday’s episode.

“This feels like the biggest bummer in college basketball,” Norlander said. “I didn’t expect them to be a top 3, top 4, maybe not even a top 5 team in the Big Ten, but I thought, at minimum, they would be a team that was going to be on the bubble, a will-they, won’t-they (make it). I thought that would be the worst-case scenario. I thought the best-case scenario would be these guys would be awesome, transform it and they could be the fifth-best team in the Big Ten. … Can you think of a story that’s more of a letdown right now than these Scarlet Knights?”

Parrish agreed with Norlander’s sentiment.

“In my top five of things to follow this season, it was two five-star freshmen at Rutgers, two projected top-five picks in Piscataway,” he said. “The idea that it’s now sitting here, 16 games in, at 8-8, to me, that’s the biggest disappointment in the sport. Because what it suggests is we are going to play the NCAA Tournament without maybe two of the top three NBA prospects we have in college basketball. That’s not good for anybody.”

The disappointing stretch from the Scarlet Knights has not been surprising to coaches who have faced them. Norlander gathered anonymous quotes from various opposing coaches for his Court Report, admitting Friday that there “were a couple of quotes who were objectively fair analysis but they were a bit too harsh, so I couldn’t put them in.”

Both Norlander and Parrish acknowledged that the door is not completely shut on the Scarlet Knights making a miraculous turnaround and reaching the postseason, but they don’t seem convinced it is anything close to likely.

Parrish: I don’t see the turnaround. Steve was asked about this and he said ‘well, you know, Selection Sunday is (66) days away.’ And that’s true, but I rarely like the idea of — you haven’t, at one point in this season that’s two months old, shown yourself to be a good basketball team, but you’re just going to flip it and turn it around in a league like the Big Ten? Yeah, good luck.

Norlander: I’m not calling it impossible, but from what we’ve seen 16 games in, it seems highly unlikely — and man, that sucks, because it would be awesome to be talking about this team weekly.

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Brian Fonseca may be reached at bfonseca@njadvancemedia.com.