Rutgers Move To The Big 10 Is a Farce

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have long been a proponent of Rutgers leaving the Big East, but the recent news that they might be on the "short list" of schools being considered for inclusion in the Big 10 Conference is ridiculous, especially for the basketball team !!!   Please all me to explain:

 

  -   Rutgers basketball has been "bottom dwellers" since their inclusion in the Big East because they simply cannot recruit against the other elite programmes in the metro area ... and if you cannot recruit, you cannot compete !!!

 

  -   Rutgers cannot even attract a coach who has the experience of winning in the Big East as exemplified by their passing on Fran Frascilla and Al Skinner, who had the imprimatur of Coach K.  Rutgers needs to realize that they are a dead-end for any coach with aspirations of succeeding ...

 

  - Rutgers has lost many of the kids they were somehow able to recruit ... the most famous being Dahntay Jones, who left for Duke stardom, and the most recent being Mike Rosario, who will play for "Billy the Kid" at Florida next year, plus numerous other kids who found a plethora of excuses to leave ...

 

So, if they cannot recruit/compete in the Big East, why, oh why, would they believe that they can compete in a conference which is a perennial contender ???

Think about it, the coach they finally attracted came from a low-mid-major (The Northeast Conference) and was lauded for his Assistant Coaching experience at St. Joe's in Philly and Pitt, so how does that all translate into the Big 10, when the closest programme is Penn State ???

Yes, the Rutgers football programme is somewhat more successful, but not to the extent that they can compete in the Big 10 !!!

It is high time Rutgers realized that, while they are a wonderful academic institution, they most certainly are not of the same ilk as those elite teams in either the Big East or the Big 10 ... 

There is no shame in being in a conference in which the competition is essentially the same as your programmes are ... Rutgers, while having the distinction of being the only state university not named after their state (of New Jersey), is not capable of competing on the level of other state universities, especially those of the Big 10 !!!

I prefer to ask the "powers that be" at Rutgers, why they turn a blind eye/ear to Shakespeare's excellent advice of:  "To thine own self be true ..."