Rutgers basketball remains in a good spot in the latest update from ESPN, this following a big road win for the Scarlet Knights on Sunday.
In his Tuesday ‘Bracketology’ update, ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi has Rutgers in a solid position for the NCAA Tournament.
According to Lunardi, Rutgers basketball is solidly in at No. 9 for a second-straight update, showing some solidifying of the Scarlet Knights tournament status. Coming into the weekend, Rutgers was floundering and appeared to be heading in the wrong direction and possibly missing out on the NCAA Tournament entirely.
And then on Sunday, down 19 points in the second half at Penn State, a strong effort on both ends of the court saw Rutgers pull out a 59-56 win. Rutgers has now won two of their last three games and appears solidly to be back in the NCAA Tournament projections.
The win lifted Rutgers to 18-11 (10-8 Big Ten) on the season.
Lunardi now has Rutgers playing No. 8 Missouri in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in the West bracket (Las Vegas). The winner of that game would taken on the winner of No. 1 Kansas against No. 16 Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
This is an encouraging projection for Rutgers and shows that their slide in the seeding outlook (they were a No. 7 seed according to Lunardi just 10 days ago) has stopped.
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The Scarlet Knights close out the Big Ten regular season this week with games at Minnesota and then home on Sunday versus Northwestern.
In their NCAA Tournament projections this week, The Sporting News has Rutgers basketball as a No. 11 seed.
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