Rutgers Women's Basketball readies for first road trip against a familiar face
After a five-game homestand to start the year, Rutgers Women’s Basketball is hitting the road for the first time a week before Thanksgiving.
The Scarlet Knights (4-1) take on Auburn in the return game of a home-and-home series first played at Jersey Mike’s Arena in 2023, which the visiting Tigers won 76-56. Rutgers will play at Neville Arena for the first time, with plenty of storylines ahead, including an old friend on the other side.
Head coach Coquese Washington, as well as forwards Antonia Bates and Zachara Perkins, discussed their first road game, and how the team has progressed through five games so far.
The familiar face
This game’s most obvious headline is, of course, the showdown between Big Ten and SEC, a rapidly-shrinking trend as NCAA Tournament resumes consume all schedule building. But in this matchup in particular, it represents a return of a former teammate.
New Auburn guard Mya Petticord faces off against her former team for the first time, after transferring to the Tigers (5-0) and new head coach Larry Vickers in the offseason. Petticord spent two years at Rutgers after her freshman season at Texas A&M, and the Detroit native has gotten off to a strong start in her final campaign. She ranks third on the team in scoring with 11.6 points per game through five wins.
“A lot of love for Mya, ‘Money’ we called her, a lot of love for her,” Perkins said during the team’s weekly media availability.
Even with the game coming up, it is expected to be all business once the ball is tipped, even against one of Bates’ “best friends,” as she put it.
“We’ve talked before the game, so yeah, it’s definitely exciting,” she added. “But we’re definitely coming down also with that same mentality that we want to win, and I think that kind of takes over. We’re all very competitive, including Mya, so we’ve talked about this and we’re ready for the game.”
Washington added a perspective on how these matchups are becoming all the more common.
“I think in this era of the transfer portal, it’s not like it was in years past,” she said. “And some of these kids, they’re on their second and third college team that they’re playing for. When they’re only there for a year or two years and they move on, you don’t necessarily have the depth, you know, kind of, they’ve been there for three years or four years.”
This marks the second consecutive year Washington has coached against a former player, as the Scarlet Knights played Kaylene Smikle and No. 8 Maryland last season. There will be another matchup of the sort later in the year – two, to be exact – when Rutgers faces off against Kiyomi McMiller and Penn State twice during the Big Ten slate.
“She had an impact. I really enjoyed coaching Mya,” Washington added. “She’s a good kid, and she’s been at Auburn, and I know she’s having a good start to her career down at Auburn.”
On the road again
After two-and-a-half weeks in the friendly confines of Jersey Mike’s Arena, Rutgers plays its first road game of the season, around the same time the first road game popped up on the schedule last year, a 91-80 loss to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
This year’s opening road game provides a similar challenge.
“[We’re] excited to go on the road,” said Washington. “Understanding that going to play an SEC opponent on their home court definitely is going to be a challenge. But we’re ready to get in the gym and get better, iron some things out, and go down there for a tough competition.”
Given the nature of a new roster and coaching staff, there are certainly still things to iron out, but the team is still preparing the same.
“I think we’re really starting to gel together and things like that,” added Perkins. “I think the team’s just preparing to be aggressive and fast-paced, [and] I think that’s our goal in every game, and I think we’re just going into Auburn with that same mindset. It’s also our first away game, so just preparing for that.”
Building off a win
The sophomore wing is coming off a career performance in Sunday’s win over FDU with 17 points, in another win where the Scarlet Knights had to battle late to take down a pesky non-conference opponent. It was a performance the Houston native had been working towards before the season even started.
“Over the summer, I just put a lot of work into my game, and I think that helps with my confidence,” she said. “I feel like my teammates and my coaches have really prepared me in practice and in situational moments to be that leader, to step up. I think just having that step-up mentality, and knowing that I have to step up to the plate of what my coaches and my teammates need me to be, I think that’s just what kind of took over in that game.”
Another X-factor in the victory was the play of Bates on the defensive side of the floor, particularly in the second half. She played a season-high 36 minutes and tied a career high with 10 rebounds, while also serving as a primary perimeter defender. As the senior gets further into her return to the floor, the defensive side of the floor has continued to be her way to settle in.
It’s not something that anyone can’t see, I am very comfortable on defense,” she said. “It’s just something that comes more natural to me. As I play more games, I am starting to feel more confident on the offensive end, but yeah, I feel like defense gives me my confidence, and it leads to my offense.”
Keys to the game
Heading into the Thursday evening showdown, both teams come in relatively evenly-matched, at a combined 9-1 record, and victories against low- and mid-major tests, with the lone loss between the two being the Scarlet Knights’ defeat against Stony Brook. On the floor, Vickers’ squad has gotten off to a strong offensive start.
“They’re athletic, they like to press, they want to run,” said Washington. “They want to get up and down the floor. So I think those things are challenges to anybody [they] play. They crash the offensive glass hard. I think they average about 14 offensive rebounds a game, so defensive rebounding is going to be a big key for us.”
Protecting the defensive glass has been a key tenet all season for the Scarlet Knights, though one they have struggled with at times, as Washington pointed to following Sunday’s win. The Tigers rank 18th nationally with a 43.2 percent offensive rebounding rate, so possessions will not be over after the shot goes up.
As Washington noted, the press has also worked wonders, as Auburn has forced turnovers on 30.8 percent of defensive possessions, good for 32nd nationally. That serves as a matchup advantage for the home team, as the Scarlet Knights have struggled for several seasons running with protecting the ball, and this year’s iteration has turned the ball over at least 14 times every game this season.
Part of those turnover woes has been the relatively low amount of live-ball turnovers, which could be seen as a positive given the fact that it helps lower the number of fast-break opportunities, but many of Rutgers’ giveaways have come in the form of travels, illegal screens, or tipped passes out of bounds.
“The more games we play, the more acclimated we get to, not so much the system itself, but playing with each other,” Washington said on remedying those issues. “And playing with each other on game day in new roles. All of that is coming together. So the more games we play, I think the more comfortable we’ll get and the stronger understanding we’ll have of how we want to execute. But absolutely, we’ve got to flesh out some things on the offensive end of the floor.”
For Rutgers, the best pathway to a road victory – which would be just the second since the start of last season – is winning the possession battle. That is, giving the offense its best chance to succeed by keeping the ball without turnovers, and containing the glass to only give Auburn one chance at a shot.
The Tigers and Scarlet Knights tip off at 7 pm ET at Neville Arena.
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