Rutgers Basketball: Scarlet Knights have been bad, but Steve Pikiell’s seat is not warm

In sports, two things can be true at one time.

Think back to Rutgers Football season. The beautiful fall afternoons watching Scarlet and White perform on the field. The first eight weeks brought hope before the tides turned in mid-October and the year ultimately ended in a bowl win.

The two major conversation topics — a late-season four-game losing streak was a catastrophe and that this year was a success just getting back to a bowl game.

Guess what? Both were true. History is repeating itself for Rutgers Basketball, down to the putrid offensive performances, but in a different way.

Rutgers turned in its worst performance of the season during a 15-point loss to lowly Penn State on Wednesday night. This sparked many questions about Steve Pikiell and the job he has done this season.

Once again, multiple opinions can be correct. In this case, Pikiell has done a poor job coaching this season and there is no denying that. On the other hand, his seat is not warm and fans should not be ready to jump ship on the coach who built this program back to where it wants to be.

Pikiell took over a bad program in 2016 and brought them back to the NCAA Tournament, making back-to-back appearances in 2021-22. It would have been three in a row if the 2020 tournament did not get cancelled due to the pandemic. And to add even more conversation, many believe the Scarlet Knights were snubbed last season.

Step one is complete — make Rutgers a tournament contender on a yearly basis. That is, of course, until this season.

Rutgers is currently 10-10 overall with a 2-7 record in the Big Ten. Many who follow this program fooled themselves preseason into believing that this team would be able to play a fast-paced style and shoot the ball with more efficiency. That has been far from the truth.