PISCATAWAY – Before either Corey Sanders or Deshawn Freeman played a minute in their Rutgers men’s basketball careers, it became abundantly clear why the two newcomers are thought to be so important.
Rutgers opened the season by snapping a 15-game losing streak with a 72-59 victory against Rutgers-Newark, a Division III opponent put at the front of the schedule to virtually ensure avoiding matching the program’s longest-ever skid set during the 1987-88 season.
But Rutgers’ worst nightmare – an attention-grabbing loss to a school under the same university umbrella – looked like a possibility throughout the first half as both Sanders and Freeman sat and the score was tied at the break.