Takeaways | Rutgers basketball beats UCLA in badly needed victory as losing streak ends

Posted by Admin January 14, 2025 Basketball

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PISCATAWAY – The most formidable opponent Rutgers star guard Dylan Harper has faced in recent days isn’t one he battled on the court.

The heralded freshman guard was hit by a bad strain of the flu, stripping him of energy, a considerable amount of weight – not to mention the three losses the Scarlet Knights suffered while Harper was limited.

But Harper on Monday night was the closest to his usual self as he’s been in a while. Rutgers needed it.

The results showed.

Harper drained consecutive three-pointers to start the second half, sparking Rutgers to a badly needed 75-68 victory over UCLA at Jersey Mike’s Arena.

The win snapped the Scarlet Knights’ three-game losing streak, while also extending the Bruins’ losing streak to four games as their promising start to the season continues to be flushed away.

Harper finished with 18 points, four rebounds and four assists, but was limited a good portion of the second half because of foul trouble.

Regardless, Harper did enough in what was one of Rutgers’ best all-around performances of the season.

The Scarlet Knights shot 46.2 percent from the field, while UCLA shot 42.4 percent (the Bruins were just 6-of-19 from long distance).

Rutgers extended its lead to nine points with five minutes to go, but struggled to put UCLA away. The Bruins cut it to four with three minutes remaining and it was tight until the end.

UCLA made it a one-point game with two minutes to go but Ace Bailey, who had a game-high 20 points with 10 rebounds, drained a three from the right corner on the other end to push Rutgers’ lead back to four.

After a Bruins free throw, a reverse layup by Jeremiah Williams, who had 11 points, made it a five-point game with less than a minute left.

A three-point play by Bailey with 18.8 seconds left put Rutgers ahead by seven to secure the win.

The first half ended with UCLA leading 33-30 – Rutgers cut it to three when Bailey through down an alley-oop dunk on a lob from Harper that brought the crowd to its feet with 26 seconds to go in the half.

The Scarlet Knights never led before halftime, but they were within seven points the entire first half.

Five takeaways

1. Starting lineup revamp with a freshman infusion

Pikiell shook things up by inserting freshmen forward Dylan Grant into the starting five – that meant four freshmen in total started with Dylan Harper, Ace Bailey and Lathan Somerville (making his second-straight start) joining Grant.

Guard Tyson Acuff, the grad transfer from Eastern Michigan, also received his first start of the season.

Acuff had three points in 15 minutes while Grant had three points and two rebounds in 24 minutes.

“They’ve been great in practice so they earned that opportunity,” Pikiell said. “They gave us good minutes.”

2. Zach Martini plays significant minutes

It hasn’t been the easiest few weeks for Martini, whose playing time has been relatively limited.

But the Princeton transfer forward saw 13 minutes against UCLA and was a game-best plus-11.

Martini finished with four points (he drained a three-pointer about eight minutes into the first half) and one rebound in 13 minutes while playing sound defense – his production may not jump off the box score, but his contributions were valuable for Rutgers on this night.

3. “RAC Magic” returns

The environment inside Jersey Mike’s Arena returned to the loud, raucous atmosphere that’s helped give Rutgers one of the best homecourt advantages in the nation.

It made a difference.

“Thankful for our fans, they were great,” Pikiell said. “Gave us a great edge.”

That wasn’t the case for Thursday’s blowout loss to Purdue, where the RAC was pretty quiet for a lot of the night.

Rutgers on Monday night also held a moment of silence for the victims of the wildfires in Los Angeles.

4. What it means

This was a Quad 2 win for Rutgers – UCLA entered the day ranked No. 32 in the NET. It’s undoubtedly the Scarlet Knights’ most significant win of the season.

How much it helps them dig out of their NCAA Tournament hole remains to be seen, but it’s really too early to even begin thinking about the Big Dance.

At this point, Rutgers just needs to win games. A lot of them.

Beating UCLA helped. Now the Scarlet Knights need to start stacking victories.

5. Up next

Rutgers will hit the road again to play Nebraska in Lincoln on Thursday (9 p.m. ET, FS1), the first of two straight road games (the Scarlet Knights play at Penn State on Jan. 20).

The Cornhuskers are 12-4 overall and 2-3 against Big Ten competition, with their conference wins coming against Indiana and UCLA.