Both Rutgers basketball programs are going to be extremely busy over the next few weeks as the transfer portal window for women’s basketball opened today, with the men’s transfer portal window opening at midnight tonight. Rutgers men’s basketball coach Steve Pikiell will be looking to rebuild his team with a significant amount more in his NIL arsenal then he had in years past. Women’s basketball coach Gary Redus II will be building his first ever roster at Rutgers as he tries to return his program to competitive
status as soon as possible.
Both coaches are in a similar boat to one another with what they have to do in the days ahead and what they have to work with to start out. Redus arguably has the taller task ahead of him since he is inheriting a team that only had one Big Ten win last season and lost their best player from last season to the transfer portal. Pikiell on the other hand has much more pressure on him to turn it around as his leash is getting shorter and shorter with each passing losing season where the same issues arise.
Both programs received major help recently as both were given a general manager to assist in areas such as the portal. Rob Sullivan will look to aide the men’s side while Matthew Brune will look to leave a positive mark on the women’s side this off-season.
For Pikiell, he will have a lot of work to do in the portal, however, he does have some players on the team he can develop and keep, preferably as some of the first options off the bench. These include guards Tariq Francis, Lino Mark, Kaden Powers, and Darren Buchanan Jr. This also means that Pikiell will have to keep them from entering the portal, but if he can, that limits the amount of additions he will have to make. Redus on the other hand will likely have to build almost his entire roster in the portal or off highly rated freshmen he lands because his program doesn’t have a lot of talent to build around, especially after the recent transfer announcements. This means that both programs will likely have either mostly new or completely new starting lineups next season.
Both of them have the same big three needs as well, a good center for underneath the basket, a point guard who can facilitate the offense, and a three point shooter who can provide some consistency from deep. It will be interesting to see the comparison in each program’s ability to address these needs in the upcoming weeks.
Be sure to come back to On The Banks to see which players both programs land out of the transfer portal!
