Rutgers head basketball coach Steve Pikiell recently recorded a new episode of his podcast, with the topic of the new episode being an update on the 2026 transfer portal now that the portal is closed for all new entries. While he did talk about some of the pickups Rutgers made in the portal, he talked more about how important it was for them to retain the core group of guys they wanted to retain. This article will focus more on what Pikiell said about player retention, with a follow-up to come revolving
around what he said about the newcomers to the team.
To start the podcast, Pikiell spoke about how their most important portal acquisition was Keli Zinn, and how many sorts of retention had not happened over the past few years. Through her accomplishments, Rutgers was given an arsenal of supplies and manpower to go out and do what they needed to do to retain their core group of guys and address some of their needs in the portal.
In terms of retention, JaMichael Davis was seen as a key retention piece not only because of his talent but also because of his leadership. Pikiell said that he might even be one of the last four-year guys the program sees for some time. In terms of Tariq Francis, Pikiell cited his offensive capabilities and free-throw shooting as reasons to bring him back, along with Darren Buchanan Jr, who was a key retention piece because he was one of the best shooters in the program, according to Pikiell.
He then moved on to talking about how important it was to retain last year’s freshmen like Lino Mark and Kaden Powers. Pikiell spoke about how they spend time developing all of their freshman, but in the past few years, those freshmen have gone on to play somewhere else. By retaining them, Rutgers fans will get to see what their development over the past year has looked like. On top of that, they already have a basic understanding of what competing in the Big Ten looks like, meaning that they are more ready to take on conference opponents, because they have already played the top teams in the conference.
By keeping this core around, Rutgers was able to attempt to plug the team’s holes in the transfer portal rather than having to build an entire squad from scratch.
A link to Pikiell’s podcast episode can be found here.
