THE END

NEW YORK — Mike Rosario sat on the floor — face in his hands — just out-of-bounds underneath the Scarlet Knights basket with 30.4 seconds left, adding injury to insult.
Just a split second earlier Tory Jackson had put the dagger in Rutgers men’s basketball team’s heart, finishing an outlet pass with an uncontested lay-up to put the final points on the scoreboard, and Notre Dame left the first round of the Big East Tournament with a 61-50 victory.
The coaching staff checked on the freshman after he crashed to the floor trying to win a loose ball for his team on the same play that led to Jackson’s bucket. It was that kind of night for Rutgers: a lot of effort and nothing to show for it.
“We got the shots we wanted but we missed lay-ups, wide open looks, 12-15 foot pull ups,” Rutgers head coach Fred Hill Jr. said of the team’s effort. “We did a great job on the glass, 14 offensive rebounds and we didn’t score. When you get an offensive rebound two feet away from the basket, you have to be able to go back up and lay that in.”   
The Knights (11-21) played like a desperate team last night at Madison Square Garden. They out-hustled, out-rebounded and played like a team that took an energy drink that never wore off before leaving the locker room.
But for all of their zeal and tenacity, the Knights were missing the key ingredient to success that they have been missing all year long. That is because offensive potency doesn’t come in a bottle.
“You saw a microcosm of the season,” said head coach Fred Hill Jr. of his team’s woeful offensive showing. “We just got to become a better offensive team. We’ve got to shoot the ball better. We have to become more consistent in our decision making.”
The final numbers for the game, and of the season, were ugly. RU hit 33.3 percent of their field goal tries and even more putrid 3-18 from beyond the three-point line. The only one who could put the ball in the basket consistently was junior center Hamady N’diaye.
He scored a game-high 14 points on 6-7 shooting, grabbed five rebounds and blocked two shots. It was only the second time all season that the junior center has scored in double digits.
The rest of the Knights were nowhere near his level. The starting lineup combined to shoot just 11-42. And even sophomore guard Corey Chandler, who is supposed to be an offensive sparkplug off of the bench, had his follies as he was 2-10 from the field.
It all played into the game plan for Notre Dame (18-13). They made it a point of emphasis to keep RU at the half-century mark, and created distress for the Knights by switching between a 2-3 zone and man-to-man defense.
“We had to defend to win the game,” said Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey. “I told our guys keep them at 50 points. I think that was the key to us winning it because they really defended our guys well… The only way we were going to win the game was by manning up and playing man-to-man.”
The Knights managed to stay in the game, despite scoring just 19 first half points, by matching the Irish defensively, limiting Notre Dame to just 35 percent shooting.
Reigning Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody was effectively shut down. He made just three of his 17 field goal attempts and finished with seven points, his second well-below-average perforamce against Rutgers this season.
“I have to commend our defensive effort,” said Hill. “I have the utmost respect for Luke Harangody, he was the reigning Big East Player of the Year coming into the season, he probably averages somewhere in the mid 20s. I wanted to kill [Rutgers Radio play-by-play man] Chris Carlin because he said Harangody came into tonight shooting 30 percent against us and he goes 3-17 tonight. So hats off to [N’Diaye] and Gregory [Echenique].”
It was nonetheless a bitter pill to take for a team that has spent the entire season finding ways to lose; one that senior guard Anthony Farmer called a “rollercoaster ride.”
“When you get open shots, you got to knock them down if you want to give yourself a chance to win,” said Hill. “We certainly give ourselves a chance to win on the defensive end every night out.”
But last night they didn’t have the offense to pull it out, just like all season long.