The Daily Targum's Tip-off 2009

T H E D A I LY TA R G U M

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

TIP-OFF

Brand-New Attitude With six new faces, the Rutgers men’s basketball team has a fresh style and heads into the 2009-10 season with realistic expectations of a postseason berth for the first time in four years.

ON THEIR BACKS Sophomores Mike Rosario and Gregory Echenique are ready to put a disappointing campaign behind them and carry Rutgers back to the postseason. pg. T3

UP-HILL CLIMB Head coach Fred Hill Jr. is 7-51 in the Big East since taking charge of the program and is under pressure to produce his first winning season. pg. T2

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Hill needs to show results now

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RAMON DOMPOR/ ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

After sitting out last season under NCAA transfer regulations, junior forward Jonathan Mitchell, center, is one of six new faces suiting up for Rutgers.

New personnel heighten postseason expectations

BY STEVEN MILLER CORRESPONDENT

It is tough to say a team with only one senior has experience.

But to some extent, the Rutgers men’s basketball team has it.

Sophomores Mike Rosario and Gregory Echenique started nearly every game in their campaign as true freshmen and their development is essential to the Scarlet Knights’ success. But junior forward Jonathan Mitchell, a transfer from Florida, brings the most valuable experience — one no other RU player has — in the form of postseason play.

“There’s not any magic to it,” said head coach Fred Hill Jr. “When you’re talented and you’re experienced, you’re really, really good. When you’re talented and you have some experience and youth, you start to show the signs of becoming a better team and a better program. I think that’s where we are.”

So, in Hill’s fourth year at RU, the process continues.

On a team with six new faces and two sophomores who can carry less of the burden than last season, the expectations are there.

But more importantly, they are within reach.

“You want it overnight, you want it yesterday — so do I,” Hill said. “Now, we’re talking about a team that has realistic expectations. We have the right people in the program … and postseason is a realistic goal for this group.”

And while the personnel are different, the schedule brings just as much promise.

Last season, many called the Big East the best conference in the history of college basketball. Three No. 1 seeds represented the conference in the NCAA

Tournament, and two teams reached the Final Four.

This year, things are easier.

“I was expecting it to be tough, I was expecting it to be good,” Rosario said. “But this year the conference is not going to be as tough. You don’t have DeJuan Blair, Paul Harris, Jonny Flynn and those guys.

The conference has basically leveled out.”

Not only did the league lose NBA-caliber talent, but RU is also treated to playing DePaul twice. The Blue Demons went 9-24 last season and the Knights earned one of their two conference wins against the Chicago team.

But for the Knights to succeed in their goal of reaching the postseason, they must take advantage of a weak nonconference schedule.

Of the 12 out-of-conference games, nine are at the Louis Brown Athletic Center. The nine teams RU hosts combined for a 111-165 record last season.

“I know some people think if you play harder games then you’ll be more ready,” Echenique said. “In a way, that’s true, but I don’t think it will affect us as much. Sometimes you just need to play and get confident, especially since we have a lot of new guys.”

One of those new guys is Mitchell, who won the 2006-07 National Championship with Florida. When asked what he learned from the title run, his answer was simple: Win the games you are supposed to win.

The message translates to the earlyseason games in Piscataway.

“You could beat the deaf and the blind — not knocking them — and it builds some confidence,” Mitchell said. “Every game counts, every game matters. We have to instill the winning mentality and take care of business early with our non-conference schedule.”

elcome to the pressure cooker, Fred Hill Jr. Hill, now in his fourth year at the helm of the Rutgers men’s basketball program, has to win and has to do it this year.

Bottom line. Plain and simple.

Hill talks all the time about the process of building a program.

But when is he going to have anything more than a foundation?

He says this year.

“You have to have a sense and a feel and pulse to a team,” Hill said at the team’s Oct. 28 Media Day. “Certainly taking over the program, you don’t put unreal expectations on people, but for the first year I have a sense and a pulse of where our team was and what we’re capable of.”

What exactly are they capable of?

They have sophomores Mike Rosario and Gregor y Echenique, both of whom held their own as freshmen. They added junior transfers James Beatty and Jonathan Mitchell, and when Hill says he has the most athletic and exciting team in his tenure, he is right.

At guard, Rosario ranked fifth nationally in scoring among freshmen and Mitchell, a for ward, has championship experience from his days in Florida. Add in the freakish athletic ability of freshmen for wards Dane Miller and Austin Johnson, and this group really could be the start of a new chapter in Scarlet Knights basketball.

But can Hill be the guy to lead them to the postseason?

“A postseason berth is always the goal,” Hill said. “I know everybody wants to talk about and put the expectations on our guys overnight and so

do I, but now we’re talking about a team that has realistic expectations and we are turning the corner.

“We have built the program and we have the right people in the program with the right attitude and work ethic. A postseason is a realistic goal for this group, but it’s not a given.”

Damn right, it is not a given.

Consider Hill’s records over the last three seasons: 10-19, 11-20 and 11-21, for a 33-60 overall mark (7-51 Big East).

“Freddy’s a veteran of the Big East and the good thing about him is he doesn’t need me to tell him that you have to pay your dues in this league,” said Villanova head coach Jay

“[Hill] talks about building a program. But when is he going to have anything more than a foundation?”

Wright during the Big East’s Media Day. “When you have a bunch of young guys, they have to understand that they’re going to get beat up a little bit.

“They have to understand the little things you’re talking to them about, because even though they’re great high school players, this is the Big East, and those little things matter and I really think his team’s ready to do that now.”

Of course Wright is going to say something positive about his former assistant, but if you look at the records, RU’s pro-

Fully Franko KYLE FRANKO gram has been stagnant these last three seasons.

And that creates pressure.

“There’s a lot of pressure to me just for the fact that I believe so much for this team and I have the greatest expectations since I’ve been playing basketball,” said senior center and captain Hamady N’diaye. “To me, it’s good pressure because I know we can do it. There are no ifs or buts about it. We have everybody we need and it’s time to push through to that next level.”

But just because N’diaye sees it as good pressure doesn’t mean everyone else does.

“There are two kinds of pressure, which I call good pressure and bad pressure,” said Seton Hall head coach and Hill archnemesis Bobby Gonzalez. “Bad pressure is when you’re desperate and have to win. Good pressure is when you have a good team and there are expectations.”

What if the Scarlet Knights stumble out of the gate against a weak, non-conference schedule? What if a team that has the talent to win 7 or 10 Big East games wins only 2 or 3 again?

That is when you get bad pressure.

And Fred Hill Jr. does not need bad pressure.

— Kyle Franko accepts comments and criticism at kjfranko@eden.rutgers.edu

PROJECTED STARTERS

JAMES BEATTY Guard

MIKE ROSARIO Guard

JONATHAN MITCHELL Forward

GREGORY ECHENIQUE Forward

HAMADY N’DIAYE Center

Junior 6’-2”, 195 lbs

Sophomore 6’-3”, 180 lbs

Junior 6’-7”, 225 lbs

Sophomore 6’-9”, 265 lbs

Senior 7’-0”, 235 lbs

RAMON DOMPOR/ ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Head coach Fred Hill Jr. is just 7-51 in Big East games during his three years at the helm of the Rutgers men’s basketball program. Hill begins his fourth season Saturday when RU hosts Marist.

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BRENDAN MCINERNEY/ SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

RAMON DOMPOR/ ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Sophomores Mike Rosario, left, and Gregory Echenique, right, are expected to shoulder the expectations of the Rutgers men’s basketball team this season. Rosario ranked fifth nationally among freshmen in scoring at 16.2 points per game while Echenique averaged eight points and eight rebounds per contest.

SUPER SOPHOMORES Busy summers help Rosario, Echenique forget difficult rookie campaign as year two approaches

BY KYLE FRANKO ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

By the conclusion of the 2008-09 season, Mike Rosario had more losses in one year than in his entire life.

“It was hard for me because I didn’t really understand losing,” Rosario said in reference to the Rutgers men’s basketball team’s 11-21 flop last season. “To go through a drought of losing games has put me in a position where I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wow, I’ve come a long way since high school to college and I was never losing how I was.’ It’s at a point where it’s like, ‘Wow, what’s going on?’”

But this is year two.

The sophomore is maturing both on and off the court. You can tell by the way he answers question after question in the same unruffled demeanor — just this year — with a little less shooting from the hip. “[Last season] made me a better player because, first of all, now I understand losing. I went through losing and that was something I’ve never done before,” Rosario said. “Second of all, now that I have a year experience under my belt, it puts me in a better position because I know what teams are like now, and

what they are going to tr y and do to me from a defensive standpoint.”

Rosario, a lanky 6-foot-3, 190pound guard, comes off of a rookie campaign in which he averaged 16.2 points per game, ranking him fifth nationally among freshmen.

But even he admits the workload of a rugged 18-game Big East schedule was tough to handle.

“Physically, toward the end of the season, I felt a little drought where my body started to break down a little bit,” Rosario said. “[Head coach Fred Hill Jr.] told me when the season started that my body was going to break down around January, because your body is not used to this type of play. I lasted a long time throughout the whole season and didn’t really break down until there were four or five games left, and then my body started to ache in different spots.”

Yet the Jersey City native is more prepared for this season than he had been for any one in the past, something he credits to his experience playing for Puerto Rico’s national team over the summer.

“The international experience helped me a lot because I was playing with adults,” Rosairo said, as he mentioned teammates Carlos Arroyo of the Miami Heat and J.J. Barea of the Dallas Mavericks. “It

was the best experience of my life, to just have an opportunity to play with the national team and play against older people who are playing at the next level after college. I think I did a great job and it motivated me to get ready for the season and work hard.”

“We still feel like we can go out there and put the team on our backs. ... I feel like I can put the team on my back.”

MIKE ROSARIO Sophomore Guard

Rosario is not the only one reaping the benefits of international experience. Sophomore Gregory Echenique spent his summer competing for his native Venezuela.

“It definitely helped,” Echenique said of the experience.

“It was my first time with the senior national team and ever ybody was older than I was so it was pretty cool to learn and bring that experience back here to help the team.”

Part of helping out for the 6-foot9, 265-pound power for ward is establishing a mid-range jumper to help take the scoring load off Rosario.

“In a way, we have a lot of responsibility on our shoulders about this team and the success of it,” Echenique said. “I also think that we can count on other teammates to help us now that [junior Jonathan Mitchell] is back and we got a new point guard.

“But yeah, I think that Mike Rosario and I have a little bit more responsibility in a way than the other guys just from being higher recruits, but it’s still going to take a team effort to bring this program to the next level.”

Echenique averaged 8.4 points and 8.4 rebounds per game as a freshman, and Hill expects him to take the next step in his progression.

“Both Mike and Gregor y are starting to come into their own,” Hill said. “You have to remember both came here as 17-year-old seniors out of high school, which is ver y unusual. They are just starting to develop physically and the big thing with Gregor y is he just needs to be more assertive.

“We’ve talked to him about going inside and asserting himself.

He has the potential to be a guy who averages a double-double.”

That works for Rosario.

“I feel as though I’m not going to have to do as much scoring, because we have multiple players on this team that can put the ball in the basket, and that’s one thing that we lacked on last year,” he said. “[It] will be great because that takes a lot of pressure off me and teams have to start worr ying about our other players, and that could be a positive because that can open up the basket for me more, besides them not hugging me and playing me tight [on defense].”

The Scarlet Knights add six new faces this season, but the hard truth is that ever ything still revolves around the sophomore tandem.

“Me and Greg still look at it as we are the focal points of this team,” Rosario said. “When other teams go up against us, they focus on us two, and we feel as though we still have to have the same role we had last year. We still feel like we can go out there and put the team on our backs. I know I feel like I can put the team on my back.”

Big words for Rosario to back up — but then again, he’s never backed down before.

“We’re right there,” he says, “on the route — just waiting for that time, that one block that we can turn so fast and just see this team explode.”

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TIP-OFF NOVEMBER 10, 2009

THE DAILY TARGUM

Chandler’s exodus still stings restructured Knights

BY MATTHEW STEIN SPORTS EDITOR

DAN BRACAGLIA/ MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

Forward Jaron Griffin, above, is one of three graduated seniors the Knights are aiming to replace. Point guard Anthony Farmer, below, ran the offense and led the team last season in assists.

THE DAILY TARGUM

It has been nearly three months since Corey Chandler was unceremoniously dismissed from the Rutgers men’s basketball team for a violation of athletic department policy.

A host of new players arrived at Rutgers in the time since to replace Chandler and four other Scarlet Knights that moved on, but the memory of a departed teammate still lingers.

Without any details to fall back on, the team was left confused and bewildered as the summer wound down.

Sophomore guard Mike Rosario, one of Chandler’s closest friends from before their time on the Banks, felt blindsided.

“I was like, ‘This can’t be real. It just can’t be true,’” Rosario said.

“Me and that guy were together ever y day. I love him to death. He’s like my brother.

“We were talking about being in the gym before the season starts, and how we were going to go out this year and turn this team around, and the next thing you know I don’t have him by my side.”

Chandler’s discharge came at a quiet time of year, which only hastened judgment and questions around the circumstances. Rosario was playing overseas with Puerto Rico when he heard the news and said he was unable to get in touch with anyone close to the situation.

Fellow guard Mike Coburn was home when he got the notice, and sophomore for ward Gregor y Echenique was playing in Venezuela.

“Everything really happened kind of fast,” Echenique said. “I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to him. I was surprised. I really didn’t expect that to happen. He was working hard through some issues, but all of a sudden that happened and I was like ‘Wow.’ I really didn’t expect that to happen.”

Plagued by on- and off-court troubles last season, Chandler nearly transferred from RU after a blowout loss at Syracuse. The controversy over playing time and attitude was squashed, however, and the guard played out the rest of the campaign, but unrest was omnipresent.

Center Hamady N’Diaye, the lone senior on this otherwise-young Knights roster, took the unhappy Chandler under his wing to get him back on the right track prior to his dismissal.

“No matter what they say about Corey, I think he was changing. He started learning,” N’Diaye said. “I had him with me for a while and he was doing really well. I was really sad

when I realized he wasn’t going to come back.”

Chandler is not the only one gone.

Graduating seniors Anthony Farmer, Jaron Griffin and JR Inman — as well as transfer forward Earl Pettis — leave RU in a completely different state.

Though players shot down notions of a locker-room divide last season — conceptions came from both Chandler’s predicaments and the early-season suspensions of Griffin and Inman — nearly all reinforced the budding theme for this season’s unit: trust.

“We’re very close,” Rosario said.

“All the guys talk to each other and communicate everywhere we go. We do things together, and something that the team didn’t do last year was bond and be together and do things together. That’s what’s going to build a team.

“The chemistry this year is great because there is trust, and that’s what makes teams better and makes teams successful.”

But that doesn’t mean replacing five key players will

be easy.

The five amounted for 47 percent of the Knights’ total minutes played last season, 45 percent of the total points and a whopping 58 percent of the team’s assists.

“It’s always a challenge when you have new faces and new talent, but its one that I can do every day with a smile on my face because I really love this team and I love what the new guys bring

to the table,” said head coach Fred Hill Jr. “They’ve injected passion, enthusiasm and hard work into our practices and injected competitiveness.”

What Farmer lacked in natural scoring and ball-handling ability, he made up for with on-court presence, experience and leadership. More of a tweener guard than a point, Farmer dictated the offense when it mattered most.

“The team that we had last year was good, but losing the type of players like we had last year [is hard],” Rosario said. “Corey and Anthony were warriors. They tried to guide me as big brothers, and that’s why I respect them because they came out there every practice, every game and just gave it 100 percent.”

Finally with all his own players, Hill’s fourth season at the helm carries massive expectations for a new core brimming with talent but thin on experience.

For wards Dane Miller and Austin Johnson, center Brian Okam and guard Muhamed Hasani are all freshmen expected to make an impact, but immediate responsibilities will fall on transfers James Beatty and Jonathan Mitchell.

“I try to explain to them that they don’t want to go through what I’ve been through,” N’Diaye said. “They have to push themselves every single day, no matter what it is, and push themselves to the limit. They will know that at the end of the game and the end of the season they will have given it their best and they cannot blame themselves.

I really have big expectations for them.”

And they put high expectations on themselves. Replacing five departed talents is one thing; making RU relevant on the Big East and national scales is a whole different story.

That’s exactly why Mitchell became a Knight.

“We’re tired of losing,” Mitchell said. “We’re tired of the RAC being empty. We’re tired of the other team having more fans than us.

“All those things we took into consideration this summer, and it helped us in our workouts.

That’s what motivated us and got us fired up.”

TIP-OFF NOVEMBER 10, 2009

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GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY MATT STEELE

Prince’s early exit highlights loss of three starters

BY SAM HELLMAN ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

Epiphanny Prince single-handedly won games last year, scoring nearly 20 points per game and representing 30 percent of the team’s scoring.

Kia Vaughn’s heart and post presence carried the Rutgers women’s basketball team to its 2007 NCAA Championship Game appearance.

Forward Heather Zurich’s shooting touch was always good for a boost and forward Brooklyn Pope’s spark off the bench brought a different kind of energy to the court.

And now it’s all gone.

“We have lost the entire inside and obviously we have lost an extremely productive shooter who can go inside and outside, and you could always call on for a shot in any given situation,” said head coach C. Vivian Stringer. “With that, this is a rather daunting challenge. I personally like challenges.

“I just have to keep my mind focused on the fact that as long as we try and really work hard every day and give the effort, then I feel that we are learning because we can’t afford to drop our heads and be frustrated.”

The challenge of replacing Prince, a guard who left the Scarlet Knights early to play overseas, and Vaughn, a center drafted by the New York Liberty to play in the WNBA, is a daunting one for RU. “Epiphanny is a great loss and we didn’t have time to recover,” Stringer said. “By the time we found out, we couldn’t even bring another person in.

So that is not a comfortable position to be placed in and it doesn’t change our schedule or anything else. It is what it is, and we can’t spend any time worrying about it.”

It all comes down to senior guard Brittany Ray and sophomores Khadijah Rushdan and April Sykes to replace the massive void left by Prince.

Ray was second on the team in scoring behind Prince — with 10.2 points per game — and is the only returning player to start every game last season.

“You can’t replace 20 points per game,” Ray said. “It’s going to have to come from everybody. Like coach Stringer says, the freshman group that came last year are sophomores now, so we’re going to have to have a lot more contributions from them, and I think that they’re going to be a pivotal part in our success this year because they’ve grown up so much.”

Though Rushdan was in her second season last year after a medical redshirt, both she and Sykes were freshmen. Both came to Rutgers as cream-of-the-crop recruits. At the time, Rushdan was Delaware’s all-time leading scorer. Sykes, from Starkville, Miss., is a high school McDonald’s AllAmerican and 2008 Preseason Big East Freshman of the Year.

Rushdan’s slashing style at combo guard last season led to 8.4 points per game in conference play.

“Last year was a great learning experience,” Rushdan said. “I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger as the season went on, and it felt great to get back on the court after my injury.”

Sykes, on the other hand, did not live up to expectations as a freshman.

She showed glimpses of a lights-out jump shot early in the season, but then trailed off significantly, averaging just 1.8 points per game against the Big East and shooting just 15 percent in-conference.

“Even if Epiphanny was still here, I still saw myself stepping up more as a scorer,” Sykes said. “Brittany is the only legit, experienced player in every aspect of the college level and she’s going to need help.

Khadijah’s going to need help and ever y-

body’s going to have to hold their own weight.”

Stringer said that Prince’s defensive prowess — 171 steals in her last two seasons — is also a significant loss.

Senior forward Myia McCurdy is a defensive specialist, Ray said, and is expected to help fill that void.

McCurdy tore her ACL two seasons

ago and had to play all of 2008-09 with a knee brace, but said she is fighting fit.

“My knee feels great. It’s way better than last year,” McCurdy said. “It’s 100 percent. I feel faster, stronger, and I feel like I have more balance and can jump higher. I’m done. No brace. I’m free. Free at last.

“Whether we lost our top-scorer or not, defense is always impor tant.

We can’t get on the floor unless we play defense. We’re not going to win games unless we play defense.

We have to address defense from the beginning.”

Replacing Vaughn is a different story.

The consensus among coaches at Big East Media Day is that Vaughn is not the type of player you can just replace at center. Her athleticism, strength and energy in the post both offensively and defensively is unlike any other, said West Virginia head coach Mike Carey.

“Kia Vaughn, in my opinion, is the one that we really struggled with because she’s just a force down low,” he said. “It’s funny. After our last game I told her, ‘You had a great career, but I’m sure as hell glad you’re leaving because I don’t want to see her anymore.’”

Senior center Rashidat Junaid is the resident veteran down-low, averaging around 10 minutes per game through the last two seasons. At times, Junaid had more scoring prowess than Vaughn and is crucial to success in the post, Stringer said.

“I miss her. Kia was so competitive and she battled every day,” Junaid said. “It’s tough not having her here, but it just gives me the chance to step up.”

Junaid is also a key as a rebounder, but the Knights are most impressed with the emergence of another sophomore McDonald’s All-American, Chelsey Lee, as a rebounder.

“Chelsey Lee is probably going to be one of the best rebounders this year,” Ray said. “She’s totally improved in that area. We didn’t get to see it as much last year because we had Kia Vaughn and she was such a dominant post force.”

RU lost two important players in Zurich, now playing professionally overseas, and Pope, a transfer to Baylor. Between the four total departed student athletes, Stringer knows the Knights have their work cut out for them.

“I wish we had more time to prepare but I like the challenge we have as a coaching staff — to be the ultimate team,” she said.

BRENDAN MCINERNEY/ SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Scarlet Knights lost both their starting post players in the offseason. Center Kia Vaughn, above, went to the New York Liberty and forward Heather Zurich, below, plays overseas.

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DAN BRACAGLIA/ MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

Entering her third season with Rutgers, guard Khadijah Rushdan, right, can expect an increased offensive workload as the Knights try to replace leading scorer Epiphanny Prince.

As a redshirt freshman, Rushdan averaged 8.4 points per game in Big East play, and 8.3 points per game and four assists during the NCAA Tournament.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS Rushdan enters sophomore season with tall task of helping replace departed Prince’s 19.5 points per game

BY STEVEN WILLIAMSON SENIOR WRITER

Khadijah Rushdan knows how to score — just ask anyone in the state of Delaware.

When the McDonald’s AllAmerican graduated high school and joined the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Rushdan was the all-time leading scorer in the entire state with 2,414 points in four years.

But the heralded guard’s freshman season as a Scarlet Knight came to an abrupt end eight games into the year after tearing her ACL. After receiving a medical redshirt, Rushdan returned to the floor last year, but primarily in a new position running the point.

With the Knights in need of a presence at both the one and two slots this season, head coach C. Vivian Stringer expects Rushdan to switch between go-to scorer and offensive distributor on any given night.

“I’m going to accept any challenge that coach Stringer brings my way,” the sophomore said.

“And I’m definitely going to accept anything that is going to help the team improve. It comes down to whatever I can do to help the team.”

At point guard, Rushdan is expected to lead a very different offense for the Knights. Last season, RU ran a balanced inside-out

attack on the backs of center Kia Vaughn and guard Epiphanny Prince that made the team lethal from any range.

With both Prince and Vaughn gone, it is up to whoever runs the point to set a new tempo and help the Knights run the floor.

“Khadijah was playing her best basketball toward the end of the season. She was the point guard we needed her to be,” Stringer said. “Without question, we struggled at the beginning because, again, I can be pretty tough on our point guards, but I thought she really embraced it and she knew what she needed to do to get ever yone involved.”

Rushdan started 22 games last year in her first full season, but played in all 34. While her 2.4 assists per game average was good for second on the squad, she led the team in a more undesirable statistic — turnovers. The sophomore’s 2.7 turnover per game average was the highest for the Knights last year.

But the guard continued to settle in to her new role down the stretch, starting in 21 consecutive games to end the year and scoring a season-high 20 points against Farmingdale State.

No matter who she has with her on the court, Rushdan is comfortable leading a diverse squad, who she said is working hard together, from the seniors to the freshmen.

“The upperclassmen — and our seniors especially — have all just been so supportive of one another,” Rushdan said. “And our freshmen, they’re really buying into the system. They’ve come here and they’re willing to learn.”

From the two spot, Rushdan will be relied heavily upon to score, helping to replace the 19.5 points per game that are lost with Prince’s departure. The guard was fourth on the team in scoring last season with seven points per game.

“My feeling is that even though while I did play the point, me being a [two-guard] I can still distribute the way I can,” Rushdan said. “But I’m just going to have to have a different look with more of a shoot first mentality rather than pass all the time.”

Already, she showed glimpses of being a big-game performer when it counts, as her numbers increased alongside the level of her competition. Rushdan averaged 8.4 points per game against Big East opponents last season and 8.3 points in the NCAA Tournament, with an average of nearly four assists per game.

In their first matchup last year, the sophomore drained six threepointers over undefeated National

C h a m p i o n Connecticut, finishing the game with 18 points, nine rebounds a n d

t w o assists.

It’s numbers like that Stringer hopes for from her guard this year, and that means carr ying over last season’s momentum and never slowing down.

“I think maybe initially she had some reser vations about, well, ‘What are they

talking about?’ [as she continued to adjust],” Stringer said. “But when she found herself sitting and she wasn’t playing, then she understood this is the way we are going to play this game. She never looked back.”

In addition to putting up the offensive statistics, Rushdan made a name for herself defensively.

The sophomore is the team’s leading returning rebounder, finishing third on the team last season behind Vaughn and Prince with an average of 4.4 rebounds per game. Rushdan pulled down an average of 3.2 defensive boards per contest and finished the season averaging over a steal per game.

Regardless of position, she is one of the focal points of the Knights’ new offense — no easy burden to bear — but her teammates are ready and willing to help her out.

But pressure or other wise, Rushdan’s fellow Knights expect big things from her this season.

“This is going to be a breakout year for Khadijah, and I think you saw glimpses of that toward the middle and end of last season,” said senior guard Brittany Ray. “She’s a great player — I’ve known her for three years now — and I think she’s going to show that to the world this year.”

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TIP-OFF NOVEMBER 10, 2009

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Get ready for strange season

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BRENDAN MCINERNEY/ SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Head coach C. Vivian Stringer, a 2009 inductee to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, enters her 15th season at Rutgers and 39th overall.

Stringer’s 39th year to be one of her toughest

BY STEVEN WILLIAMSON SENIOR WRITER

For someone who admittedly looks forward to a challenge, the upcoming season for the Rutgers women’s basketball team should not disappoint head coach C. Vivian Stringer.

One of the most prolific scorers in the countr y, a four-year starting center and a versatile perimeter shooter, are gone.

Make no mistake, without the big name players that it has been used to over the past several years, the team does not anticipate success simply falling into its lap.

“I personally like challenges,” Stringer said. “I just have to keep my mind focused on the fact that as long as we try and really work hard every day and give the effort, then I feel that we are learning because we can’t afford to drop our heads and be frustrated.

“We don’t have anyone [who can bail us out]. We have to be the best team that Rutgers has ever had in order for us to survive this schedule — the best team.”

For a team ranked fifth in the country prior to last season and third the year before, RU begins the year at No. 25 in the latest polls, the last possible spot.

The Knights take on eight teams ranked in the top 25, as well as four top10 programs in No. 2 Stanford, No. 4 Notre Dame and No. 8 Tennessee — not to mention unanimous No. 1 Connecticut, coming off yet another perfect season.

Senior guard Brittany Ray returns as the leading scorer for the Knights, after averaging 10.2 points per game in the 2008 campaign. A critical performer last season — especially down the stretch in Big East play — the senior will be called upon to help provide a spark for the new-look offense from the very first tip-off.

“It is obvious that Brittany will need to be a go-to person. That is a little different set of clothes that she wears now,” Stringer said. “It can’t [all] be Brittany. We all have to share the responsibility.”

While Ray, redshir t sophomore guard Khadijah Rushdan, senior forward Myia McCurdy and senior center Rashidat Junaid will be relied upon as upperclassmen to contribute, the Knights need to see execution from all five members on the court, regardless of class.

“I don’t think we can put everyone into classes like senior, junior and sophomore,” Ray said. “I think that were going to have to be a team, like coach Stringer said. It’s all about ‘we’ this year; she’s been stressing that a lot in the past few weeks.”

The “we” comes partly in the form of the Knights’ sophomore class, which entered last season as one of the most heralded freshman classes in the country with five McDonald’s All-Americans.

Fast-forward to this year, and two of the three transferred. Of the three who remained, sophomore for ward April Sykes led the class in scoring with an anemic 3.2 points per game, low numbers from one of the premier recruits in the country.

For the Knights to help replace the scoring they lost in the offseason, production from the sophomores will be critical, but the “we” aspect is something Stringer expects from all 10 of her players whenever they suit up.

“The things I am talking about with the ‘we skills’ — the ‘we skills’ are passing, better defense and rebounding. We have to be better at all those things,” Stringer said. “We have to be smarter.

We have to take advantage of the layups.

We have to recognize how you play this game and how balance it has to be going inside and going outside.”

his year is going to be a strange one. The expectations are nowhere near as high as they usually are.

There is no star power — yet.

And two of the greatest players in Rutgers women’s basketball history, Epiphanny Prince and Kia Vaughn, are elsewhere.

There’s just a RU team that clearly wants to play basketball — and a Hall of Fame head coach.

“I think we’re projected as kind of an underdog and that’s a good position for us to be in,” said senior guard Brittany Ray. “It doesn’t put a lot of pressure on ever yone because we’re such a young team and everybody doesn’t expect that much.

When people put a chip on your shoulder, I think you’re going to work harder to exceed expectations and I think that’s what this team is going to do.”

Anyone remember the 200607 team that went to the NCAA Championship game?

Probably not, but the shades between then and now are ever ywhere.

Don’t be surprised if the Scarlet Knights start off the season as poorly as they did back then. Three years ago, RU started 2-4 and didn’t catch its stride until it was almost too late. This year will be similar.

A brutal schedule at the beginning of the season, including a face-off with No. 2 Stanford at the Louis Brown Athletic Center to start the 2009-10 campaign, awaits the Knights.

With a team so young, don’t expect instant cohesion.

But when this team inevitably clicks, watch out.

“They do, in my opinion, have better chemistry than any of the other teams,” said head coach C. Vivian Stringer. “They

have a great deal of pride. They don’t want to look bad. It is our intention to protect them until they are ready to fight on their own. I have no doubt that we will ultimately be where we need to be.

“I just want to remind myself and us as a coaching staff not to get frustrated. My experience tells me as long as we have the right attitude, we do the right things and we work.”

Maybe a star-less team without the monumental expectations of the last two seasons is exactly what RU needs.

The experience and talent

“With a team so young, don’t expect instant cohesion.

But when this team inevitably clicks, watch out.” of the last two seasons obviously wasn’t the answer with two early exits from the Big East Tournament and the inability to return to the Final Four with virtually the same roster in 2007-08.

The tone this year is different.

Just talking to the senior class, it’s clear that Ray, forward Myia McCurdy and center Rashidat Junaid know what they have to do.

But the X-factor and key to victory falls in the hands of sophomores Chelsey Lee, Nikki Speed and April Sykes — the remaining members of last year’s Fab-Five, none of which performed, or got the chance to

Hell’s Kitchen SAM HELLMAN perform, to their potential last year, and that absolutely needs to change.

“We never lost as much as we did last year and I think it took a toll on us,” Sykes said.

“After we lost to Purdue in the Sweet 16, we got in the gym the next day toward this year.

Sometimes people say ‘You lose to learn,’ and I think losing a lot of games last year taught us this year to be prepared.”

Right after getting knocked out of the NCAA Tournament, the Knights hit the gym to get ready for the next season.

Everyone’s passed the conditioning tests and even Stringer, who isn’t known for babying or having the nicest things to say about her players to the public, seems pleased.

“I think they have great potential as long as they don’t get an attitude with each other or give up on each other,” she said. “I have always had the great guard that can get it done or the outstanding center. There is always somebody that has a name or reputation.

I really like this challenge because we have a real chance to prove what it means to be the ultimate team. The ultimate team — that is what I am talking about.”

— Sam Hellman accepts comments and criticism at sthellman@gmail.com

PROJECTED STARTERS

KHADIJAH RUSHDAN Guard

BRITTANY RAY Guard

APRIL SYKES Forward

MYIA MCCURDY Forward

RASHIDAT JUNAID Center

Sophomore 5’-9”

Senior 5’-9”

Sophomore 6’-0”

Senior 6’-1”

Senior 6’-4”

BRENDAN MCINERNEY/ SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Just as the 2006-07 team had to replace Cappie Pondexter, this year’s Scarlet Knights lost key leaders Kia Vaughn and Epiphanny Prince to professional basketball. Senior guard Brittany Ray, right, is the only returning player to have started in all 33 games last season.

T H E D A I LY TA R G U M

PA G E

TIP-OFF

T8

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Into the Fire THUNDER ROAD Sophomore Khadijah Rushdan has a tough path to follow as a scoring guard and leader without Epiphanny Prince shouldering the load. pg.T6

CLEAN SLATE Losing star-caliber players might bode well for a young Scarlet Knights squad in the long run as a wacky season gets underway. pg. T7

The Rutgers women’s basketball team has little time to recover from losing its leading scorer and rebounder after last season.

The rocky road begins Sunday when the Knights host No. 2 Stanford at the RAC.