Guess how many D1 schools are in New Jersey?
Guess how many of them play basketball?
Hold those thoughts…..
Back in mid-May, men’s hoops added Bryant to its 2026-27 schedule. In the comments to that post, Zanily (I hope it’s Zanily) wrote, “I don’t mind games against Army and Bryant, although the Scarlet Knights find a way to lose one almost every year. What I do mind is that the likes of Princeton are not scheduled each year. Seton Hall? Let’s play them! But leaving off Princeton tells me that Rutgers
doesn’t believe that it has much of a chance.”
Scheduling is as much an art as it is a science. Who do you play? When? At home or away or at a neutral site? What’s their KenPom or NET or cumulative GPA? You can’t always schedule North Carolina School of Applied Shading & Airballistics or South Dakota Institute of Stationary Screen-Setting & Stagnant Offense. I mean, they aren’t good at hoops and we’d likely win but…..
So, why not schedule Princeton every year? Once upon a time, RU-Princeton football was the game “on the banks”. Until we decided to take the sport more seriously and Princeton started losing too much and said No mas! But we do play the Tigers pretty regularly in many other sports. Same with Seton Hall. Rutgers has so few rivalries compared to the rest of the Big Ten. It truly verges on embarrassing that we aren’t rivals with anyone (looking at you, Terps. Don’t walk away from me!)
Oh, the two questions at the top of this post. The answer is eight. There are eight New Jersey colleges in Division 1 and they all play basketball: Rutgers, Seton Hall, Princeton, Monmouth, St. Peters, Rider, NJIT, and FDU.
Eight teams. The same number as in a perfect eight-team tournament bracket. Hey, there’s an idea! Why not a mini-tournament with the eight schools? You could have double headers in two locales, maybe the Prudential Center and Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton. Those two sites are just 57 miles apart. Four teams at The Rock (FDU, St. Peter’s, NJIT, Seton Hall) and four teams in Trenton (Rutgers, Princeton, Monmouth, and Rider). Two winners play at the same location the next night, with the championship at the home court of….hmmm, it was going so well there for a while.
Okay, the likelihood of all eight schools agreeing to this is probably somewhere between 1% and zero. I’d venture to say that the schools with the most negative view of it would be Rutgers and Seton Hall, possibly feeling that they have the most to “lose” in such match ups and not wanting to lock out dates at home during non-conference play. But it doesn’t mean that Rutgers should automatically shut out the idea of scheduling some (more) New Jersey opponents. As was discussed, Princeton and Seton Hall should probably be on every year. And the others have already visited Jersey Mike’s (or the RAC) in the not too distant past. It was a while back, but in 2010-11, as part of the Big East, RU played NJIT, St. Peter’s, FDU, Monmouth, and the Hall (in conference twice). In 2024-25, St. Peter’s, Monmouth, and Seton Hall were all on the schedule. This past season, Rider and the Pirates made the cut. Rotate the opponents and bring everyone to Piscataway periodically.
You want and need wins. Putting soft opponents on the schedule was how Jim Boeheim became a legend in upstate New York (that and Carmelo Anthony among others). You need some time to breathe, to rest your big guns and give your bench, players 9-13, some minutes. And that isn’t any disrespect to any of these schools. Look at what Shaheen Holloway did at St.Peter’s four years ago in the tournament: defeated No. 2 Kentucky, No. 7 Murray State, and No. 3 Purdue. Not too shabby.
This isn’t throwing anyone a bone for being nearby. These are Jersey schools with some Jersey pride. You have to get ready playing someone and you can’t do that only with a non-conference diet of the likes of St. John’s and Syracuse (which is actually part of the 26-27 schedule!)
And playing those Jersey schools isn’t necessarily a walk in the park. Right, Zanily?
