Scouting report: A Q&A with a Rutgers beat writer ahead of Clemson's tourney opener

Clemson opens NCAA Tournament play Friday night against Rutgers.

We spoke with Rutgers beat writer Keith Sargeant, who covers the Scarlet Knights for NJ.com, to get you ready for the matchup.

Here’s a Q&A with Sargeant about what to expect from Rutgers:

1. Clemson is somewhat undersized and often uses 6-8 forward Aamir Simms at the 5. Does Rutgers have a big man who could give Clemson trouble?

Rutgers center Myles Johnson has arguably been the team’s MVP this season. He’s only averaging around 8 points per game but was among the Big Ten leaders in rebounding and blocked shots.

The 6-11 redshirt junior needs to stay out of foul trouble for Rutgers to have any chance in this one. It was an issue early in the season, then for a stretch of eight games late in the season he did a better job avoiding ticky-tack fouls. But the issue emerged in Rutgers’ Big Ten Tournament ouster at the hands of Illinois when he fouled out for the first time since Dec. 23.

2. Ron Harper Jr. is a name a lot of people who follow college basketball know. Outside of him, who is the most important player for Clemson to limit?

Geo Baker is the engine that makes Rutgers go. He’s not flashy, just a solid guard who can defend, set teammates up as a play-maker and he hits clutch shots with the best of them. It’ll be interesting to see if Rutgers can take advantage of his 6-4 height against Clemson’s smaller guards.

3. It has obviously been a while since Rutgers has been in the NCAA Tournament. Do you think the lack of experience could hurt the Scarlet Knights? Clemson doesn’t make regular appearances in the Big Dance either, but the Tigers do have two seniors who played in the tourney in 2018.

Rutgers has one player with NCAA Tournament experience. Jacob Young scored eight points in a career-high 40 minutes of action for Texas in the 2018 NCAA Tournament. But the rest of the team has no NCAA Tournament experience to speak of. I actually think it’s not going to affect them that much, considering their eight-man rotation consists of three seniors and three juniors. The likes of Baker, Harper, Johnson and Young have played in big games for Rutgers the past two years.

4. What do you feel like is the key for Rutgers to make an NCAA Tournament run?

This is going to sound simplistic, but then again, basketball at its root is a simple game. Rutgers needs to hit shots. They haven’t recently, and it’s shown in the string of five losses in nine games entering the tournament. For the season, Rutgers ranked next-to-last in the Big Ten with a .311 3-point shooting percentage. But Rutgers exceeded that percentage in its biggest wins, including 40-percent efforts in its upset of Illinois and its overtime win at Minnesota that sealed its NCAA Tournament bid.

5. How good was the Big Ten this year and how much of an advantage do you think it is that Rutgers faced that schedule? 

By all accounts, it was the best it’s ever been top-to-bottom. We’ll obviously see whether Illinois and Michigan can live up to the billing as 1-seeds, but the KenPom conference-efficiency ranks rated the Big Ten slightly ahead of the 2004 ACC as the greatest KenPom conference ever.

Of course, a skeptic would say Big Ten teams didn’t really get tested outside of the conference since most of the non-league schedules were wiped away early on. But the NCAA selection committee obviously was sold on the Big Ten’s superiority considering it welcomed nine of its teams into the field — the most of any league this year. If you ask Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell, he’d say getting tested night-in-and-night-out in the best league in the country is a big advantage. But the counterargument is whether the grind of having to go through the 22-game gauntlet will have any residual effects.