WARNING: Use of this product could result in severe damage to your health. Serious and sometimes fatal incidents have been known to occur. Rutgers (6-21, 0-14 in Big Ten play) versus Minnesota basketball (7-19, 1-13) is about as horrid as the game that began with a peach basket can get. It’s a contest of teams that have combined to go 13-40 overall, 1-25 in Big Ten play.
The general awfulness here is truly off the charts. If you watch the Rutgers at Minnesota basketball game tomorrow night the television could actually kill you.
If you survive, then brace yourself, because the two sides meet again March 5th at Rutgers. It’s also possible, albeit not very likely, these two teams could square off again in the Big Ten Tournament on March 9th. If you a few dominoes fall into place, it could happen.
Think about that for a moment- three potential Rutgers versus Minnesota basketball games in 16 days! I’ve had malware infections more pleasant than that scenario. Maybe your television will get stricken with a DDoS attack if Rutgers hoops is broadcasted across its machinery.
Interested to see how Rutgers does without Sanders as they're fighting 2000 NU for worst B1G per-game scoring margin since 1950.
— Drew Hallett (@DrewCHallett) February 15, 2016
If you’re a reporter covering this game and 99% of your article isn’t devoted to how awful this is and how terrible these two teams are, then you’re committing journalistic malpractice. Even if you’re a boring Associated Press reporter who’s gig is to do nothing but produce dry, vanilla copy a robot can output, you’re still obligated to focus on the hot mess here.
If Real Madrid versus Barcelona is “El Classico,” then this is El Assico. (trademark @hammerandrails, the SB Nation Purdue community) Also, trademark @edsbs, Spencer Hall, SB Nation Editor for labeling Iowa-Iowa State the football El Assico.
I know what you’re thinking, “if this game is so bad and so irrelevant, then why are you talking about it so much?”
Because it prevents an actually good game from being played instead.
Purdue versus Indiana is Big Ten basketball El Classico, and they just reminded you of this fact Saturday night. That’s the only Hoosiers-Boilermakers meeting you’ll get this year. There isn’t a second one on the schedule; sorry!
That’s why we hate Rutgers and don’t want them here. The 2015-16 Knights are right down there with 1999-2000 and 2007-2008 Northwestern as the worst Big Ten teams in modernity.
They’re a BTTINO (Big Ten Team in Name Only, not a Pitino, but we’ll get to him soon enough). The only people not named Delaney happy about Rutgers in the Big Ten are alums living in the tri-state area. Every year when I do my preseason picks and previews I’m forced to learn about the Scarlet Knights in order to have some Rutgers acumen. My life doesn’t need such dull tedium of which I have the utmost disinterest.
It’s stunning RU is this bad despite having a Head Coach who’s held the same gig with more than one NBA team.
On the other side, it’s amazing that a Pitino can be this bad at running a college basketball program. Bad at other things in life, sure, we can see that, but bad at fielding a roster and leading it?
Yeah, we’re shocked by this drivel, dross and dreck. Pitino the Younger is one apple that seems to have fallen way from the tree and his financial success at a very young age (and lack of true prodigious accomplishment) is proof that in America, who your parents are still goes a very long way towards determining your station in life.
In June he received a $400,000 raise, upping his annual salary to $1.6 million per year. By the way, he’s contracted until April 2021, so good luck with that Minnesota basketball community. As fun bad as this game could be, it’s time to call out Maryland for screwing it up Thursday night. Because of the Terps, we won’t have an all 0-14 battle where one team is guaranteed to get their first Big Ten win.
Thanks Terrapins, now go to your room without any dinner and think about what you’ve done. The tournament selection committee should give you nothing higher than a #5 seed now for your crimes.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram