Rutgers-Seton Hall rivalry is losing its passion in a college sports world gone mad | Police

Can a rivalry exist without actual rivals? This is not just an existential question for our changing times in college sports. This is the reality of Rutgers and Seton Hall.

The two programs will meet in the Garden State Hardwood Classic for the 75th time Saturday afternoon in Piscataway, and for most of the competitors, they will literally meet when they take the court at Jersey Mike’s Arena.

You can almost imagine the conversations before the game…

Hello, my name is Dylan.

Hi, my name is Chaunce.

So, uh, I guess we hate each other?

“It’s kind of funny,” Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell said over the phone Thursday. “I looked at their roster and I’m like, ‘They don’t have a lot of players who played in the rivalry last year.’ Then I’m like, wait, come to think of it, we don’t have anyone who played in the rivalry last year!”

For the record, the number of competitors who have played in the rivalry is three. Rutgers has one, in sophomore Jamichael Davis. Seton Hall has two, in senior Dylan Addae-Wusu and sophomore Isaiah Coleman. And yes, the fact that the Pirates actually have several players familiar with the rivalry surprised even the Chief Pirate himself.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway said in another phone interview. “I don’t have (any) players from New Jersey on my team. It’s crazy. If you would have asked me to talk to my guys about this rivalry before this week, they wouldn’t know about it because nobody’s from here But the rivalry means something to me as a coach.”

This is the background to the match on Saturday afternoon. Rutgers needs a win to avoid the kind of catastrophic, resume-crushing loss that could end its realistic NCAA Tournament hopes. Seton Hall needs someone to salvage a season that, with losses to Fordham, Hofstra and (gulp) 1-10 Monmouth, looks set to be one of the worst in recent program history.

The game matters.

But look, we’re kidding ourselves if we think it means anything nearly as much to players now as it did to their counterparts five, 10, or 20 years ago. How could it? Athletes are constantly in motion. Pikiell and Holloway agree the streak should continue — and both said it will as long as they’re coaches — but it’s likely the players will have to re-introduce themselves next winter.

“You’re going to have newly assembled teams every year,” Pikiell said. “That’s where we’re headed with all of this. You just have to get used to it.”

Then again, the entire sport kicked the tradition to the curb years ago. New Jersey is lucky its best college rivalry hasn’t gone the way of Oklahoma-Nebraska. If you don’t think North Carolina and its new football coach, Bill Belichick, wouldn’t throw its rivalry with Duke overboard for a shot at some sweet TV money in another conference, you haven’t been paying attention.

Rivalry is for the media. Rivalries are for the fans. Oh, it might mean something to star Rutgers freshman Dylan Harper, who grew up in New Jersey and watched his brother, Ron Jr., play in this game four times. But unless his co-star Ace Bailey dreamed of that trip up the Turnpike while eating his favorite Waffle House breakfast in Georgia, he’ll be the exception.

“I want to do this rivalry until I die, but unfortunately my life is getting shorter and shorter every year,” Pikiell joked. “I think it’s good for New Jersey.”

Pikiell can breathe a little easier after a four-point win over Penn State on Tuesday night. He said the trip to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival, with marquee games against Alabama, Texas A&M and Notre Dame, was too much, too soon for his team needed to feed the NIL collective that pays the players. The million-dollar kitty from that event is undoubtedly cash Holloway wishes he had.

The Pirates’ problem isn’t just that they suffered the embarrassing loss to Monmouth at the Prudential Center two weeks ago, the program’s first loss to the Hawks in 16 games. It’s that Seton Hall seems dangerously close be Monmouth, a feeder program for teams with bigger budgets that are irrelevant nationally.

Weeks after a satisfying NIT championship last season, Holloway watched as his entire roster scattered in search of NIL paydays. The man who engineered Saint Peter’s miracle run to the Elite Eight in 2022 finally has a state-of-the-art training facility now in South Orange, but few players care about that stuff anymore. They want to get paid.

“You know, I have to be careful how I answer that,” Holloway said when asked about those team-building resources — ie. player salaries – which he has available. “I have to use what I have and make the best of it. I never said it would be easy.”

Holloway’s team will need to play their best game to have a shot at upsetting Pikiell’s team, but strange things happen when Rutgers and Seton Hall meet. Perhaps, after they (literally) meet this time, this rivalry will surprise us again.

MORE FROM STEVE POLITI:

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How a former Rutgers athlete ended up charged with murder in Tijuana

I was a bird-threatening Little League menace—and it’s time to come clean

The hunt for Luther Wright, once NJ’s greatest hoops talent

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Steve Politi can be contacted at [email protected].