Rutgers will get another early test in Las Vegas when it opens the Players Era 8 against Houston on Tuesday, Nov. 17, with tipoff set for 2 pm EST.
That means an 11 am PST start for the Scarlet Knights, a familiar kind of challenge after last season’s trip to the event. Rutgers opened the Players Era with Tennessee and was beaten 80-65 in a game that started at 10 am PST.
This time, the Scarlet Knights walk into the event with a new roster and a different feel. Houston arrives as one of the nation’s early favorites to make a deep NCAA Tournament run, giving Rutgers a national-stage measuring stick right away as it tries to rebuild toward a winning season.
The bracket could send Rutgers into a second-round matchup with West Virginia, if it can’t pull off the upset against Houston. It’s the third straight year Rutgers will be in the Players Era, and in each of the last two seasons it finished 1-2 in Las Vegas.
Rutgers brings back six players from last season and has added five transfers and three freshmen, including two international newcomers. One of the returners, Darren Buchanan, has already taken on a leadership role and says the tone around the program feels different.
"I feel like it is just a lot more to prove, like we know we got a lot more to prove this season," Buchanan said following a recent summer practice. "I like our chances this year.
I definitely like our chances. I feel like in the summer last year, around this time, it was kind of up in the air about how we were going to be, but I feel like now - I mean, we still got a ways to go, but I definitely like our chances.
I feel like we're going to compete with anybody for sure."
Rutgers is coming off a 14-18 season, its third straight year finishing below .500. Steve Pikiell should have a better shot at turning that around this year after an offseason that brought an improved NIL situation under new athletic director Keli Zinn.
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Schiano is entering year seven of that second tenure, and the broader frustration around the program is familiar: Rutgers still has not become a consistent bowl team under his watch. With Curt Cignetti sitting atop the list after Indianas National Championship win, the gap between the leagues rising programs and Rutgers place in the hierarchy feels even more obvious, and it leaves Schiano facing the same question that has followed him for years, only louder now. [Read more 🡒]
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USCs recent win over Rutgers offered a reminder of how much talent still sits on that roster, but it also did little to quiet the larger debate about where the program is headed under Riley. The pressure is now tied not just to the record, but to the scale of the investment, and with criticism building around the program, the next stretch of games feels more consequential than a typical midseason run. [Read more 🡒]