PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Rutgers men’s basketball is back on the road on Monday night, playing at Penn State. It represents the first Big Ten opponent that RU will play for a second time this season. The game is on Peacock, starting at 6:30 pm. One of two bus trips in the league for RU, the Scarlet Knights will travel 227 miles across Pennsylvania for the contest after returning from a 1,308 mile flight to Nebraska for the previous contest.
Rutgers enters the game on a two-game winning streak following victories over UCLA and at Nebraska (85-82 on Thursday night, a Quad 1 win and the team’s first true road win of the season). The Scarlet Knights are now 3-4 in league play and 10-8 overall, part of a crowded middle section of the league standings that sees 12 teams with between 2 and 4 conference victories in the early going.
Against the Cornhuskers, Rutgers was led by freshmen, with Ace Bailey (24), Dylan Harper (21) and Dylan Grant (15) combining for 60 of the team’s 85 points as RU downed the Huskers to snap the team’s 20-game home winning streak. Rutgers offense produced a Big Ten record 12 three-pointers en route to the 85 points, the most points in regulation against a Big Ten team since February of 2023.
Ace Bailey had his sixth double-double of the season with 24 points and 11 rebounds, along with four assists, three blocks and a steal. He was the first freshmen to reach that stat line since 2021, and it had only been done by a freshman eight times previously since 2005, and six of those times done by an NBA First Round Draft Pick, five of them top-2 picks (Greg Oden, Ben Simmons, Deandre Ayton, Zion Williamson, Michael Beasley).
Dylan Harper posted 21 points, 14 of them coming in the second half, recording his first 20-point game since Dec. 21 after scoring 20+ points in 10 of the first 12 games. It marked the third time this season Harper and Bailey each scored 20+ points in the same game (Alabama, Seton Hall) and the first time since Dec. 14.
Harper (20.1 ppg) and Bailey (19.3 ppg) remain the top two freshmen scorers in the nation. They are first and third, respectively, in the Big Ten. No other freshmen are in the top-10 in the league in scoring.
Grant’s 15 points was a career-high and continued his breakout week. After playing just 20 minutes across three games in the first 14 games of the season,…
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