Across the Hudson River, they refer to the hoops hostilities between Rutgers and Seton Hall as the Garden State Showdown, which doesn’t even come close to describing the acrimony that exists between the budget-busting state university and the visions-of-grandeur private university.
The subplot is the animosity that exists between the head coaches – Fred Hill and Bobby Gonzalez.
Their postgame handshake last night after the Pirates survived a 70-67 win over the Scarlet Knights was so superficial that not even a germ could have passed between the two, which is fine. Back in the day, there were coaches in the Big East who all but out took out hits on one another.
“I don’t think it’s a lot more different than what went on five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago,” said Gonzalez, who shook hands with Hill before the game, another perfunctory exchange that sent the coaches back to their benches in search of Purell, a hand sanitizer.
Throughout those years players from the metropolitan area have put programs on their shoulders, which is what Brooklyn’s Jeremy Hazell did. The sophomore tied his career-high with 35 points on 12-of-13 shooting from the line and grabbed 10 rebounds.
“Jeremy just took us home,” center John Garcia said.
Not before Rutgers nearly stunned the Pirates as they did last season in a 64-61 win here that turbo charged the Hill-Gonzalez relationship. After Hazell lost the ball out of bounds, Rutgers had one last-gasp chance to tie. But Mike Rosario, off a scramble, couldn’t get off a 3 before t he final buzzer.
The Hall (10-10 overall, 2-6 in the Big East) now has win two straight league games. Rutgers (9-12, 0-8) remains one of two teams winless in league play, along with DePaul.
“We know they’re desperate to win,” Gonzalez said earlier in the day on the coach’s telephone conference call. “It’s a rivalry game and anything can happen.”
No one knows this better than Gonzalez. His postgame criticism of the officials last season led to Seton Hall, with the league’s blessing, suspending him for the first league game this season.
“I’ve gotten past my situation,” said Gonzalez, who believes he can take Seton Hall back to the Final Four for the first time in 20 years.
The first half ended with Rutgers clinging to a 27-26 lead. Seton Hall, however, was starting to push the pace and Hazell started and ended the second half as hot as that NBC-banned PETA Super Bowl commercial.
“At the end of the game he was yelling to us, ‘Give me the ball!’ ” Garcia said. “He must have said it 100 times.”
He scored 28 of his 35 in the second half. His only mistake was fouling Rosario (25 points) on a 3 attempt with 8.6 seconds left and The Hall up 70-65. Rosario, however, missed the second free throw.
“It’s real close,” said Hill. “It’s just an unforgiving league this year.”
And this is an unforgiving rivalry.
S. Hall: 70
Rutgers: 67
