TRENTON, N.J. — It was less than 24 hours before he was set to be officially introduced as the new Rutgers men’s basketball coach on Tuesday when Steve Pikiell picked up the phone and made a very significant call.
Pikiell reached out to the most powerful high school coach in the state of New Jersey (and maybe the country) — Naismith Hall of Famer Bob Hurley — to wish him good luck in the Tournament of Champions final and to ask for support.
Pikiell then followed our advice and attended St. Anthony’s 55-38 victory over Linden in the TOC final at Sun National Bank Center, which completed a perfect 32-0 season for the Friars and gave Hurley his 13th TOC title. Hurley’s career record is now 1,162-119 (.907).
“He called me during the day [Monday], he wished me good luck before the game,” Hurley said. “He said he can’t wait to start. He’d like to get together with as many coaches in the state and get our feelings about what the job entails and go from there.
“He said that if he had gotten through the compliance recruiting test [Monday] at Rutgers, he could come tonight. So congratulations, a guy who’s a bright, bright guy was able to pass the test today.”
Pikiell showed some smarts by reaching out to Hurley, who told me only this past weekend that he wasn’t too familiar with the 48-year-old Stony Brook coach who was hired after Dan Hurley, Bob’s younger son and the Rhode Island coach, turned the state university down.
“I really don’t know Steve,” Hurley told me this weekend. “They really haven’t recruited any kids from our school recently.”
Pikiell has his work cut out for him.
Rutgers finished 7-25 this past season under former coach Eddie Jordan, who did not develop a reputation as a tireless recruiter or someone who worked hard to develop relationships with the state’s high school and AAU power brokers.
So it was critical that Pikiell reached out immediately to Hurley, who has year in and year out what Rutgers lacks: a championship -caliber team.
“I’ve watched his teams play on TV,” Hurley said of Pikiell. “I watched them when they had the [Bryan] Dougher kid play. They really ran good stuff, and I said to him today, he to my mind is a coach like [Michigan’s John] Beilein, that if he can get pieces he’ll figure out a way of making that work. Look what he did with [Jameel] Warney, he ran an entirely different system these last two years to get shots for his best player
“What he has to do is to get people in the state to realize that he’s a really good coach and give the school consideration on kids that are at that level. It used to be you talk to the high school coaches and get them convinced. He could talk to me. I don’t know if that’s the decision-making anymore, it’s more like an AAU world now…He’s gotta navigate that.”
He added: “[Jim] Calhoun can’t talk more highly about anybody he’s ever had, but I don’t care who you are, Beilein, John Wooden…players, players. He’s gotta get players.”
There were a slew of New Jersey products in the NCAA Tournament, and Hurley said Pikiell has to focus on keeping some of them at home (which has been the common refrain in Jersey for at least two decades now).
“There’s no question if you got one [player] from the first-team All-State team and one from the second team, you’d be in good shape every year,” Hurley said. “Because somebody like Steve you could coach some guys up, you can find some guys that are like late bloomers.”
Hurley pointed to his own former player, Markis McDuffie, now a freshman at Wichita State, as someone who could be coached up and has a high upside.
“It all gets down to having a Big Ten roster,” Hurley said. “How much time is it going to take to get a Big Ten roster? He did have a good freshman guard [Corey Sanders]. I don’t know about those bigs that were out with injuries, I didn’t see them. I don’t know who’s coming in.”
Should Pikiell try to land 6-foot-4 Roselle Catholic guard Matt Bullock, a winner of two TOCs?
“He certainly has to look at Matt because Matt is a winner,” Hurley said. “And he can make plays. Now what posiiton does he play? I don’t really see him as a guard, I see him as an undersized three who can make plays.”
Rutgers has two scholarships remaining for 2016 and Hurley suggested that Pikiell might want to use them on some graduate transfers so as not to waste scholarships for the long-term going forward. Hurley specificaly mentioned Mike Thomas and Stefan Jankovic of Hawaii.
“You can’t just give scholarships out right now because you need more players,” he said. “You bury yourself with future scholarhips….If I’m him I look at every kid that’s graduating with a year of eligibility. Hawaii has three players that are all juniors. Those three kids can’t play in the tournament next year. So if I’m a coach in college next year, maybe last name Hurley or the guy here [Pikiell], you’ve gotta do this and while the rules allow you to pick up a post-grad.
“You gotta do that stuff and maybe those guys could supplement the roster better than just giving a scholarship or two out now just to fill out the roster because you give out the scholarship for one year and then you get the scholarship back to build for the future.”
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