Rutgers had 20 wins overall, including five triumphs over teams ranked in the top 50 nationally. The Scarlet Knights also boasted a No. 40 RPI that put them ahead of four other teams on the eight-team bubble for the NCAA Tournament.
Little did C. Vivian Stringer know it at the time, but the resume-blemishes that proved to be the Scarlet Knights' undoing was a non-conference loss to Washington State and a setback to Northwestern in the regular-season finale.
While Washington State was ranked 114th in the RPI, Northwestern finished 175th in the key ranking the NCAA selection committee uses to determine the 64-team field.